Scopolia carniolica, alkaloid

Tropane alkaloids, principally hyoscyamine and hyoscine, are also found in two other medicinal plants, scopolia and mandrake, but these plants find little current use. Scopolia (Scopolia carniolica Solanaceae) resembles belladonna in appearance, though it is considerably smaller. Both root and leaf materials have been employed medicinally. The European mandrake (Mandragora officinarum Solanaceae) has a complex history as a hypnotic, a general panacea, and an aphrodisiac. Its collection has been surrounded by much folklore and superstition, in that pulling it from the ground was said to drive its collector mad due to the unearthly shrieks emitted. The roots are frequently forked and are loosely likened to a man or woman. Despite the Doctrine of Signatures, which teaches that the appearance of an object indicates its special properties, from a pharmacological point of view, this plant would be much more efficient as a pain-reliever than as an aphrodisiac. 

Atropine is the optically inactive mixture of dextro- and laevo-hyoscyamine. Laevo-hyoscyamine alone occurs in nature. The hest source of hyoscyamine is a variety of henbane indigenous in Egypt, Soudan and India, known as Hyoscyamus muticus, in the various parts of which it has been shown to be present in the following proportions leaves 1.4% stems 0.6 % seeds 0.87-1.34%. Atropine is also manufactured from the root of Scopolia carniolica, in which hyoscyamine is present to the extent of 0.43-0.51% and from A ropa belladonna, the leaves of which contain, on the average, 0.4%, and the roots 0.5%, of hyoscyamine. Many other solanaceous plants of the Datura species contain these alkaloids, in varying, and smaller, amounts, often associated with hyoscine or scopolamine. 

V-Oxides of T5- and T6-type Alkaloids (T7-B). Two isomeric V-oxides of hyoscyamine (isomer 1 with equatorial N" -0 isomer 2 with axial N -0") were isolated from five famous species of the Solanoideae which have been widely used as medicinal plants Atropa belladonna, Hyoscyamus niger, Scopolia carniolica (Hyoscyameae clade), Mandragora officinarum (Mandragoreae clade), and Datura stramonium (Datureae clade) (Philippson and Handa 1975b). In addition, isomer 1 of the V-oxides of scopolamine (hyoscine) was identified in the same species with the exception of M. officinarum. It may be assumed that these compounds are also present in other species in minor concentrations they might have been overlooked in other studies on tropane alkaloids of the classical tertiary amine type due to the fact that the identification of V-oxides needs different methods. It may be added that also anisodamine V-oxide was identified in one species Physochlaina alaica). 

---