The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Physochlaina is a small genus of herbaceous perennials in the nightshade family, native mainly to north-western China, the Himalaya, Central Asia and Siberia. Members are grown for early spring flowers and their roots and aerial parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Physochlaina is a small genus of herbaceous perennial flowering plants belonging to the nightshade family, Solanaceae, found principally in the north-western provinces of China (and regions adjoining these in the Himalaya and Central Asia) although one species occurs in Western Asia, while others occur in Siberia, Mongolia and the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. Some sources maintain that the widespread species P. physaloides is found also in Japan, but the species is not recorded as being native in one of the few English-language floras of the country. The genus has medicinal value, being rich in tropane alkaloids, and is also of ornamental value, three species having been grown for ornament, although hitherto infrequently outside botanical gardens. Furthermore, the genus contains a species (P.
A gifted botanist blessed also with a gardener's eye for beauty, George Don was enthusiastic in his praise for the two plant species for which he created the new genus Physochlaina, noting in his 'A General History... ' of 1838: The species of Physochlaina are extremely desirable plants; being early flowerers, and elegant when in blossom. They will grow in any soil, and are readily propagated by divisions of the root, or by seed. They are well adapted for decorating borders in early spring.
In regard to the soil type favoured by wild populations, volume 22 of Linnaea (in surprisingly geological vein) provides the observation that Physochlaina orientalis is to be found growing on soils underlain by trachytes (volcanic rocks of a type notably rich in the chemical element potassium, a plant macronutrient essential for the production of flowers and fruit and, in a specifically Solanaceous context, the main ingredient of liquid feed for tomato plants).
Physochlaina species have yielded a variety of tropane alkaloids, including not only the hyoscyamine and scopolamine present also in better-known Solanaceous genera such as Atropa, Hyoscyamus and Scopolia, but also the new (eponymous) base physochlaine, first isolated from the aerial parts of the Central Asian species Physochlaina alaica Korotkova ex Kovalevsk. Other tropanes present include apoatropine, aposcopolamine and 6-hydroxyatropine. Chinese équipe have recently studied Physochlaina physaloides for its alkaloid content, finding in the whole plant the following tropane compounds: cuscohygrine, anisodamine, L-hyoscyamine, atropine, scopolamnine, scopolamine-N-oxide, α-belladonnine, β-belladonnine.
At least three species of Physochlaina are currently used in traditional Chinese medicine: P. infundibularis, P. physaloides and P. praealta.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Physochlaina by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
