Folk Medicine
Latin name: Aconiti tuber
Usable parts: For homeopathic remedies, the young tubers are fast-dried at a temperature of 50°C.3
Harvest period: September. 3. Due to its toxicity, picking is inadvisable.
Constituents: Alkaloid, aconitine, napelline, sugar, starch3
Action: Analgesic, antipyretic, lethal3
Application: It wasn’t so long ago that aconite was still in wide use as an antipyretic. As some patients did not survive this treatment, it became restricted to a few homeopathic uses. Its D30 concentrate is used to lower fever and treat nerve-related ailments.6, 15
Risk of misidentification: Delphinium, grown in many home gardens15
Tips for Domestic Cultivation
It is easily grown from seeds. Due to its high toxicity-level, it should be planted where it poses no risk to children and animals. Even contact with a small 1 – 2 g plant can be lethal.
As the only insect species strong enough to open the flower and reach the sweet nectar, bumblebees are the sole pollinators of this plant. Since the bumblebee population is on the decline, natural monkshood found in the wild is thus also at risk.
Fun Fact
Even the Senate in ancient Rome decreed monkshood to be a forbidden remedy.
3 “Die Kräuter in meinem Garten” by Siegrid Hirsch & Felix Grünberger; 22nd Edition; Freya Verlag Gmbh
6 “Heilkräuter die Apotheke der Natur“ by Gottfried Hochgruber; 2nd Edition, 2018; Longo Editor AG
15 “Flora Helvetica–Illustrierte Flora der Schweiz” by Konrad Lauber, Gerhart Wagner, Andreas Gygax; 6th Edition, Haupt Verlag