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Vitex
agnus-castus L.
Standardized Common
Name: Chaste
Tree
Other Common Names: Agnus-Castus, Chaste
Berry, Monk’s Pepper
Family: Verbenaceae or
Lamiaceae (Labiatae)
Taxonomy: Vitex includes about 250 species of trees and shrubs; it is a
nearly cosmopolitan, but mostly tropical genus. Vitex agnus-castus is
the only species native to Europe. It is now widespread as a result of escapes
from cultivation.
Description: Shrub to 6 m tall;
twigs 4-angled, grayish. Leaves opposite, petiolate, palmately compound;
leaflets (3–)5–7(–9), nearly sessile, linear-lanceolate, 1.5–10 cm long;
leaflet bases attenuate; apices acuminate; margins entire or sometimes slightly
toothed; lower surface soft-pubescent. Inflorescence terminal, paniculate,
series of small cymes giving appearance of interrupted spikes. Flowers
bilabiate; calyx campanulate, 2–2.5 mm long, weakly 5-toothed, densely
pubescent with soft woolly hairs; corolla with long tube and spreading lips,
8–10 mm long, purplish blue to pink or white in cultivars, soft-pubescent
outside, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed; stamens 4, 2 longer, 2 shorter;
ovary unilocular, developing up to 4 septa in fruit. Fruit a drupe, 2–4 mm
long, subspherical, reddish to purplish-black.
Parts
in Commerce:
Fruit
Identification:
- Nearly spherical
to broadly elliptic, (2–)3–4 mm in diameter
- Calyx grayish,
cup-shaped with 5 very shallow teeth, covering half to almost all of
fruit, but brittle and often broken
- Calyx densely
covered with short felted hairs; 4-celled glandular hairs with 1-celled
stalks also present, though not readily seen
- Pedicel short
(ca. 1 mm), grayish; twig fragments grayish
- Fruit surface
purplish black
- When fractured,
mesocarp tan to brownish yellow, with ridges of septa visible inside;
inner surface of locules and broken surfaces of mesocarp glossy or
glistening under light
- Seeds (pyrenes)
up to 4, minute
- Odor warm and
spicy
- Taste warm,
bitter, similar to pepper or sage
Adulterants: Other species of Vitex
may be substituted for V. agnus-castus, notably the Asian species V.
negundo L. (Chinese Chaste Tree), V. rotundifolia L.f. (Round-Leaf
Chaste Tree), and V. trifolia L. (Simple-Leaf Chaste Tree), all of which
are frequently used medicinally in their own right. Most likely substitutes,
including V. negundo, have fruits at least 4 mm long. The fruits of less
desirable species taste bland (V. negundo tastes bitter).
References:
British Herbal Medicine
Association. British Herbal Pharmacopoeia. BHMA; 1996:19.
Patzak
A, Rechinger KH. Verbenaceae. In: Rechinger KH, ed. Flora Iranica, No.
43. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt; 1967.
Tutin
TG. Vitex. In: Tutin TG, Heywood VH, Burges NA, et al., eds. Flora
Europaea. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1972:122.
Wichtl M, ed. Herbal Drugs and
Phytopharmaceuticals, 3rd English
ed. Stuttgart: medpharm Scientific Publishers and Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press;
2004:7–10.
Figure 83: Vitex agnus-castus infructescence and fruit with intact calyx.
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