Duboisia hopwoodii
{{short description|Species of plant}}
{{Speciesbox
| image = Duboisia hopwoodii.jpg
| image_alt =
| image_caption =
| status =
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| genus = Duboisia (plant)
| species = hopwoodii
| authority = (F.Muell.) F.Muell.
| synonyms = Anthocercis hopwoodii F.Muell.
| synonyms_ref =
}}
Duboisia hopwoodii is a shrub native to the arid interior region of Australia. Common names include pituri, pitchuri thornapple or pitcheri.{{cite web | url =http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/cgi-bin/texhtml.cgi?form=speciesfacts&family=Solanaceae&genus=Duboisia&species=hopwoodii | title = Duboisia hopwoodii |access-date=2010-03-09 |work = Electronic Flora of South Australia Fact Sheet | publisher = State Herbarium of South Australia }}
Description
The species has an erect habit, usually growing to between 1 and 3 metres in height, with long, narrow leaves. Flowers are white and bell-shaped with violet-striped throats.{{cite book|author=Gardner, C.A.| title=Wildflowers of Western Australia |publisher=St George Books|location=Perth | year=1981 | isbn=978-0867780079}} These appear between June and November in the species' native range followed by purple-black, rounded berries which are 3 to 6 mm in diameter.{{FloraBase|name=Duboisia hopwoodii|id=6966}} Like other members of the Solanaceae family such as tobacco, D. hopwoodii contains nicotine.{{cite journal |last1=Fagerström |first1=Karl |title=Nicotine: Pharmacology, Toxicity and Therapeutic use |journal=Journal of Smoking Cessation |date=December 2014 |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=53–59 |doi=10.1017/jsc.2014.27 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/15D8BBF6393C6093C2076546E6515457/S1834261214000279a.pdf/nicotine-pharmacology-toxicity-and-therapeutic-use.pdf |access-date=6 December 2020|doi-access=free }}
Pituri
{{main|Pituri}}
Indigenous Australians mix the dried leaves of a small population of D. hopwoodii growing around the Mulligan River with wood ash to make a variety of pituri, the traditional Aboriginal chewing mixture. D. hopwoodii plants from this region are high in nicotine and low in nornicotine, whereas those found in some other parts of Australia can have very high levels of nornicotine and are sometimes used to contaminate water holes and stun animals to help in hunting.{{cite web|author=Littlejohn, Katie|title=Duboisia hopwoodii - Pituri Bush|url=http://www.entheology.org/edoto/anmviewer.asp?a=47|access-date=2010-03-03}} Unlike nicotine, nornicotine forms the carcinogen n-nitrosonornicotine in the human saliva.{{cite journal |last1=Knezevich |first1=Aleksandar |last2=Muzic |first2=John |last3=Hatsukami |first3=Dorothy K. |last4=Hecht |first4=Stephen S. |last5=Stepanov |first5=Irina |title=Nornicotine Nitrosation in Saliva and Its Relation to Endogenous Synthesis of N′-Nitrosonornicotine in Humans |journal=Nicotine & Tobacco Research |date=1 February 2013 |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=591–595 |doi=10.1093/ntr/nts172|pmid=22923602 |pmc=3611998 }} The paleontologist Dr Gavin Young named the fossil agnathan Pituriaspis doylei after the plant, as he thought he might be hallucinating, as though under the effects of pituri, upon viewing the fossil fish's bizarre form.Long, John A. The Rise of Fishes: 500 Million Years of Evolution. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-8018-5438-5}}
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in 1861 in Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae and given the name Anthocercis hopwoodii. In 1876, von Mueller transferred the species to the genus Duboisia.{{cite web |url=http://www.anbg.gov.au/cgi-bin/apni?TAXON_NAME=Duboisia+hopwoodii|title=Duboisia hopwoodii |access-date=2010-03-09|work= Australian Plant Name Index (APNI), IBIS database|publisher = Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, Australian Government, Canberra}}
References
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{{Taxonbar|from=Q1263158}}
Category:Solanales of Australia
Category:Flora of New South Wales
Category:Flora of the Northern Territory
Category:Flora of South Australia
Category:Eudicots of Western Australia
Category:Plants described in 1861
Category:Crops originating from Australia