Aconitum grossedentatum ("Kawachibushi")

Japanese name: カワチブシ （河内附子）
Scientific name: Aconitum grossedentatum

[Overview]
A monkshood (Aconitum) that grows in temperate forests, at forest edges and in grasslands, a pseudo-annual 0.5–1.8 m tall.
The stem is almost hairless; it is erect in grasslands and ascending in forests and at forest edges, branching well with well-extended branches.
There are basal leaves and stem leaves, and the basal leaves and the lower stem leaves have withered by flowering time.
The stem leaves are alternate, 5–19 cm long and 6–17 cm wide, pentagonal or pentagonal-rounded, and deeply 3-lobed or divided into 3 to the base.
The margins of the leaf lobes are coarsely toothed or incised.
An inflorescence about 5–12 cm long bears 1–10 blue-purple, rarely cream, flowers.
The 5 sepals are petal-like, and the upper one is shaped like a helmet.
The helmet part is conical or mitre-shaped with a long beak.
The petals are inside the helmet and have a thick, long spur.
The spur is bent through 180 degrees or more, or rarely is short and sac-like.
The stamens are usually hairless.
The flower stalk is hairless.
The fruit is a follicle, ascending or erect.
It is poisonous.
It is highly variable; the form found in the Shikoku mountains is called Shikoku-bushi, and the grassland form found in the wind-swept grasslands of the Suzuka Mountains and the Kii Mountains is called Odai-bushi (Ashibuto-uzu).

[Notes]
The Japanese name comes from its discovery on Mt. Kongo in Minamikawachi District, Osaka.

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