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The name of the genus Rauvolfia (a.k.a. Rauwolfia) was chosen in honour to Leonhart Rauwolf, a german botanist of the 16th century who discovered the plant.
The habitat of Rauvolfia serpentina are the mountains of tropical and subtropical zones, and also in wet forests.
It's native exclusively from Asia: China, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Tailandia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.
It's cultivated extensively in India and Phillipines, and in a minor degree, in South America.
It's a perennial bush, glabra with a maximum height of 1 meter, and has an axonomorph root, radical tuber type.
It has long elliptical leaves, whorled in groups of 3, with acute apex, petiolated and with a slender base.
It presents an umbel type inflorescence (2 to 5 cm of radius), with long penduncles but short pedicels.
Flowers are pentameric with white or pink as colours, with a widement at the center of the corolla, and a tomentous base.
The perianth it's formed by 5 free petals which are part from the corolla (dyalipetal) and 5 hooked sepals wich are part from the red calix (gamosepal) and they make dense group of axilar or terminal cimes.
The fruit it's an oval green drupe which grows in pairs, but as they grow up they eventually turn to black drupes.
This plant was used by the indians since several centuries ago (the oldest registry are from the year 500 b.C.) to treat snake bites, nerve crisis, mental illness, ...
The used drug part are the roots, which contains several indolic alkaloids, and the first one to be isolated and synthetized was the Reserpine, and nowadays it's the most representative one for this plant.
Both Reserpine and the rest of alkaloids trigger action on the CNS, leading to tranquilizer-like effects (but not sedative) accompanied with bradycardia and antihypertensive effects.
It also has antidepressive effects, not only because it induces the synthesis of serotonin, but also blocks seotonin binding sites (unknown mechanism).
However, nowadays there is a discussion about possible carcinogenic effects for using this drug for a long period of time, and at this moment,it is only used therapeutically in the United States, Great Britain and Germany�