龍葵之本草與藥用植物學考證

TEXTUAL RESEARCH OF LONGK’UEI ON PENTS'AOLOGY AND PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY

依據本草考證，中國祖先早於唐太宗貞觀年間，西元600多年前，即已應用龍葵，做為食用或治療疾病。由於從古至今皆言龍葵，故忽略其有相近的植物，坊間只統稱龍葵一種植物。經由本草考證，龍葵不僅有老鴉眼睛草、苦菜、天茄子、烏甜菜等別名。現代植物學資料記載，尚有少花龍葵、光果龍葵等中藥名稱，且學名亦不相同，容易混淆與誤用。現經由本草文獻考查、野外調查、參照植物特徵、比對圖片，歸納匯整獲得結論：龍葵類植物有二種至今仍被混用，第一種為龍葵，廣泛分佈於世界各地，其主要特徵為萼片會貼於顏色暗黑的果皮上，其學名為Solanum nigrum Linnaeus。另一種為光果龍葵（台灣），即是少花龍葵（中國），其花萼會反捲於鮮亮的果皮上，其學名為Solanum americanum Miller，但少花龍葵尚有Solanumphoteinocarpum Nakamura et Odashima、Solanum nigrum var. pauciflorum Liou等常用學名，本研究提供上述考證結果，冀能做為藥用植物基源鑑定的參考。Based on textual research of Pents'aology (本草學), Long-K'uei (龍葵) had been used for food or the treatment of diseases by Chinese ancestors before 600 A.D. However, because it was constantly neglected that Long-K'uei actually has other close relatives, only the name, Long K'uei, has been used from ancient times to the present. Long-K'uei has many vernacular names, like Lao-Ya-Yen-Ching- Ts'ao (老鴉眼睛草), K'u-Ts'ai (苦菜), T'ien-Ch'ieh-tz (天茄子), Wu-T'ian- Ts'ai (烏甜菜) and so on, according to Chinese medical books. In additions, it had been named Shao-Hua-Long-K'uei (少花 龍葵) or Kuang-Kuo-Long-K'uei (光果龍葵). Because a scientific name for botany material record remained to be unified, it is easily confused and misused by us. According to the Pents’aology and Chinese medical books, plants collected from country side, characteristic identification, and picture comparison, only two kinds of the plants could be classified and described as follow: First kind of Long-K'uei distributes widely throughout the world. The main feature is that fruiting calyx is applied on dull black berry. The scientific name of that is Solanum nigrum Linnaeus. The other one is either called Shao-Hua-Long-K'uei in China or Kuang-Kuo-Long-K'uei in Taiwan. It contains fruiting calyx with a strongly reflex on shiny black berry and has a scientific name, Solanum americanum Miller. However, Solanum photeinocarpum Nakamura et Odashima or Solanum nigrum var. pauciflorum Liou are also commonly used. By providing above information, we hoped that people would be more concerned with the identification of the original medical plants.