EUONYMUS EUROPAEUS (Euon. eur.)

Botanical name : Euonymus europaeus Linn. Family: Celastraceae

Synonym : Euonymus vulgaris Mill.

Common names : English: Spindle tree; French: Bonnet de pretre.

Description : Much branched, glabrous, deciduous shrub; branches quadrangular. Buds 2 to 4 mm, ovoid. Leaves up to 10 by 3.5 cm, opposite ovate or lanceolate to elliptical, acute or acuminate. Flowers 3 to 8, in cymes, tetramerous, greenish-white. Fruit a capsule, 10 to 15 mm wide, angled, pink; seeds reddish-orange covered by scarlet aril.

Part used : Seed.

Microscopical : Transection shows outer 2 to 4 layers of parenchyma followed by a ring of palisade like sclereids, a layer of unorganised suberised cells, a wide zone of endosperm parenchyma containing oil globules. Embryo consists of an outer layer of thin walled epidermal cells, followed by polygonal and oval parenchyma cells.

Identification : 1. Take one ml of 50 percent alcoholic extract, add 5 drops of dilute hydrochloric acid and a few drops of Mayer’s reagent; a brownish yellow precipitate appears.

2. Evaporate 20 ml of alcoholic extract on a water bath to remove alcohol, make it alkaline with ammonia solution and extract with chloroform (2 × 20 ml). Combine the chloroform extracts and concentrate to 5 ml. Carry out TLC of chloroform extract using chloroform : methanol (9:1 v/v) as mobile phase. Under UV light two bluish violet spots appeared at R 0.78 and 0.88. On spraying with Dragendorff’s f reagent one yellowish orange coloured spot appears at R 0.78. f

Distribution : Throughout Europe and East Asia.

History and authority : Proved by Graeser, Noack and Trinks; Allen: Encyclop. Mat. Med., Vol. IV, 234, Vol. X, 518; Clarke: A Dictionary of Practical Mat. Med., Vol. I, 725.

Preparation : (a) Mother Tincture φ Drug strength 1/10 Euonymus Europaeus, moist magma containing solids 100 g and plant moisture 500 ml 600 g Strong Alcohol 537 ml to make one thousand millilitres of the Mother Tincture. (b) Potencies: 2x to contain one part Mother Tincture, four parts Purified Water; five parts Strong Alcohol; 3x and higher with Dispensing Alcohol.