Physostigma Poisonous, or Calabar Bush

Very poisonous! Legumes - Fabaceae (Leguminosae). Pharmacy name: Calabar beans - Calabar semen (formerly: Semen Calabar). Botanical description.

A climbing shrub with large trifoliate leaves and elongated stipules. Red or purple moth flowers are collected in a raceme. Grows in the tropics of West Africa, India and Brazil. Active ingredients: alkaloids (including physostigmine-eserine), resins, protein substances, essential oil and others.

Application. As a medicine it is used only in veterinary medicine for colic. (In the form of a salt of salicylic acid, it is used to lower intraocular pressure in glaucoma.) Serves as a raw material for the production of the poisonous alkaloid physostigmine.