International Journal of Plant Sciences 173: 1036-1054. Spurs in a spur: perianth evolution in the Delphinieae (Ranunculaceae). Some insects puncture the back of the tepals, steal the nectar and by-pass cross-pollination. After pollen release, the exposed stigmas mature and pollination can happen. Initially, the stamens bend forwards but as the flowers ages they become erect and once the pollen has been released they bend backwards. Aconitum lycoctonum (Alpine wolfsbane), is a yellow-flowered. The flower is adapted for bumblebee pollination, the bee exploiting the lower tepals as a landing platform, forcing its way inside the flower, using its long tongue to get a nectar reward and becoming covered in pollen. Many species of Aconitum are cultivated in gardens, having either blue or yellow flowers. The upper tepal forms a hood which hides two elaborate, stalked nectaries, an abundance of stamens and three carpels. The bilaterally symmetrical Aconitum napellus flower has a blue-purple perianth of five tepals. Napellus (little turnip) refers to the blackish, tuberous root. Explanations for the ancient name's origin have ranged from a place in Pontus where the plant was abundant, through the plant's rocky habitat to its use as an arrow poison. Today, monkshood is redundant as a medicine but is widely naturalised in Britain and remains a spectacular early-summer garden perennial.Ĭarolus Linnaeus based his generic name on an ancient Greek name for a yellow-flowered species. Aconitum napellus was introduced to Britain, from continental Europe, before the 1590s, probably as a drug plant. The immediate effects of the toxic cocktail of diterpene alkaloids (e.g., aconitine) include reduced heart rate, burning, tickling, numbness and sensations of having fur or feathers. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Italian physician Pietro Andrea Mattioli reported condemned prisoners were given monkshood to test the medieval belief that bezoars (concretions in animal guts) were poison theriacs. In popular culture, among swirling mists and unconvincing flowering stalks, the fashionable mythology of lycanthropy was created in George Waggner's classic film The Wolf Man (1941), where even a man pure in heart may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms! The genus was used by assassins and physicians and even the elderly of ancient Chios when they were passed their prime. Over millennia, across the northern hemisphere, the genus Aconitum had acquired a formidable, and deserved, reputation as a poison ingesting a few grams of the fresh tuber can lead to a prolonged, agonising death. Wolfsbane was coined by the English 'father of botany' William Turner in 1548 from the classical names for 'wolf-killing'. Monkshood, friar's hood, auld wife's huid and wolfsbane, common names for Aconitum napellus, hint at the plant's flower shape and toxicity.

Wolfsbane flower