Botanical Name :Asparagus racemosus
Sanskrit name : Shatavari
English Name : Asparagus
Family : Liliaceae

Plant Parts Used : Root 

Description of Asparagus racemosus:
It is an under-shrub, climbs up to 1-3 m high, with stout and creeping root stock. The root occurs in clusters or fascicle at the base of the stem with succulent and tuberous rootlets. The stem is scandent, woody, triquetrous, striate, terete and climbing. The young stem is delicate, brittle and smooth. The spines are long, sub-recurved or straight. Cladodes are in tufts of 2-6 in a node, slender, finely acuminate, and falcate divaricate. The flowers, solitary or fascicles, simple or branched racemes of 3 cm long. The pedicel is slender and jointed in the middle. Perianth lobes white, fragrant and 3 mm in length. The anthers minute and purple. The berry globular or obscurely 3 lobbed, purple-reddish, seeds hard with brittle testa

 

Chemical composition / key active constituents
Steroidal saponins, known as shatavarins I-IV. Shatawarin I is the major glycoside with 3 glucose and rhamnose moieties attached to sarsasapogenin, whereas shatavarin-IV contains. Alkaloids, proteins, starch and tannin. Isoflavones including 8-methoxy-5, 6, 4' trihydroxyisoflavone 7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside. Asparagamine, a polycyclic alkaloid. Racemosol, a cyclic hydrocarbon (9,10-dihydrophenanthrene).Polysaccharides, mucilage is present in the roots.

Pharmacology:
Alcoholic extract has anti-oxytocic activity, saponin-glycoside (A4) produced a specific and competitive block of the pitocin-induced contraction of rat, guinea pig and rabbit uteri in vitro and in situ. It also blocked the spontaneous uterine motility. Also found that the hypotensive action of syntocinin in cat was unaffected by previous administration of saponin A4. Root extracts increase the weight of mammary glands in post-partum and estrogens-primed rats and uterine weight in estrogens-primed group. It also has galactogogue action in buffaloes. It increased the force and rate of contraction in isolated frog's heart, but in higher doses it caused cardiac arrest. Both aerial parts and roots have amylase and lipase activities⁶. Aerial parts have anticancer activity in human epidermal carcinoma of the nasopharynx.

Medicinal use:
Galactagogue [Production of Milk], Immunomodulator, Aphrodisiac [Sexual Tonic], Mucilaginous, Refrigerant, Diuretic, Ant dysenteric, Nutritive Tonic, Demulcent, Antispasmodic, Adaptogen, Anti tussive, Antioxidant, Antibacterial, Cytoprotective, Anti-Oxytocic, Anti diarrhoeal.

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