page_title: Physochlaina
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Physochlaina / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: The yellowish-buff, pitted, reniform seeds of a Physochlaina species - probably P. physaloides, gathered in the Altai Mountains near the Mongolian city of Khovd in August 1989.
context_page_description: Physochlaina is a small genus of herbaceous perennial plants belonging to the nightshade family, Solanaceae, found principally in the north-western provinces of China although one species occurs in Western Asia, while another is found as far east as those regions of Siberia abutting the eastern borders of Mongolia and, furthermore, not only in Mongolia itself, but also in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. Some sources maintain that the widespread species P. physaloides is found also in Japan, but the species is not recorded as being native in one of the few English-language floras of the country. The genus is a valuable one, since its species are not only of considerable medicinal value, being rich in tropane alkaloids, but also of ornamental value, three species having been grown for the purpose, although hitherto infrequently outside botanical gardens. Furthermore, the genus contains a species formerly used as an entheogen in Siberia.
context_section_description: Perennial herbs, differing in their type of inflorescence – a terminal, cymose panicle or corymbose raceme – from the other five genera of subtribe Hyoscyaminae within tribe Hyoscyameae of the Solanaceae. Flowers pedunculate (not secund, sessile/subsessile as in Hyoscyamus). Calyx lobes subequal or unequal; corolla campanulate (bell-shaped) or infundibuliform (funnel-shaped), lobes subequal or sometimes unequal, imbricate in bud; stamens inserted at the middle of corolla tube; disk conspicuous; fruiting calyx lobes nonspinescent apically (i.e. lacking the spiny points characteristic of the calyces of the related genus Hyoscyamus – the Henbanes), fruiting calyx inflated, bladder-like or campanulate, loosely enclosing the capsular fruit. Fruit a pyxidium (i.e. dry capsule opening by a distinct operculum ( = lid ) – as in the other five genera of the Hyoscyaminae).
  Pollen grain polymorphic, usually subspheroidal, oval in polar view, circular-triangular in equatorial view.
caption: The yellowish-buff, pitted, reniform seeds of a Physochlaina species – probably P. physaloides, gathered in the Altai Mountains near the Mongolian city of Khovd in August 1989.
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