Анамирта кокуллус – өрмелі өсімдік және оның қолданылуы

Climbing plant

Anamirta cocculus is a Southeast Asian and Indian climbing plant. Its fruit is the source of picrotoxin, a poisonous compound with stimulant properties. The plant is large stemmed (up to 10 cm in diameter); the bark is "corky gray" with white wood. The "small, yellowish white, sweet scented" flowers vary between 6 and 10 millimeters across; the fruit produced is a drupe, "about 1 cm in diameter when dry".

Its crushed seeds are an effective pediculicide (anti lice) and are also traditionally used to stun fish or as a pesticide. In pharmacology, it is known as Cocculus Indicus. Although poisonous, hard multum is a preparation made from Cocculus Indicus, etc., once used (by 19th century brewers) to impart a more intoxicating quality ("giddiness") to beer than provided by the alcoholic content alone. Charles Dickens referred to those engaging in such practices as "brewers and beer sellers
of low degree, who do not understand the wholesome policy of
selling wholesome beverage." Although appearing in many homeopathic volumes and at least two brewers' guides, the use of such preparations was outlawed in England, during the mid 19th century, with fines of £500 for sale and £200 for use of the drug.

The English common names are Indian berry, (both referring to the dried fruit, and to the plant by synecdoche) and coca de Levante in Spanish; it is variously known as ligtang, aria (Mindanao), bayati (Tagalog), and variations thereof throughout its natural distribution (the Philippines, East India, Malaysia, and New Guinea). The name "fishberry" comes from the use of the dried fruit as a method of fishing, in which the fish is "stupified and captured"; this method, however, is considered "unsportsmanlike".