Strychnos
(an old Greek name used by Theophrastus for some solanaceous plants). SYNS. Brehmia, Ignatia, Lasiostoma, Narda, Rouhamon, Unguacha. ORD. Loganiaceae. A genus comprising nearly sixty species of stove, evergreen trees and shrubs, often tall climbers, broadly dispersed over the tropics. Flowers small or rather long, usually white, eymose, four or five-parted; corolla lobes valvate. Fruit baccate, mostly globose, indehiscent. Leaves opposite, three to five-nerved at or above the base, membranous or coriaceous. "The species of Strychnos contain in the bark of their root and in their seeds two alkaloids (strychnine and brncine), combined with a peculiar acid (igasuric acid)--properties which are extremely energetic; their action on the nervous system is most powerful, whether as invaluable medicines or as mortal poisons. . . . The seeds of S. Nux vomica act as a powerful excitant of the spinal cord and nerves, and stimulate the functions of the organs of voluntary motion, in cases of paralysis which do not proceed from injury to the brain, for which the seed itself, or an extract, or its alkaloid, strychnine, are employed . . . . S. Ignatia yields the Ignatius Bean of India, used as a remedy for cholera. S. potatorum yields the celebrated Clearing Nut of India, which clarifies foul water when this is put in a vessel of which the inside has been rubbed with it" (Le Maout and Decaisne). S. colubrina, a native of Malabar, furnishes one kind of lignum colubrinum, or Snakewood. The pulp of the fruit of several members of this genus is edible. The species, of which about half-a-dozen have been introduced to cultivation, are of no particular value from a garden standpoint.