The use of Senecio asirensis as medicinal, as well as psychotic herb, has been in vogue since quite early, and even folklores have extensive references for the use of Senecio asirensis extracts or parts of the plant for different purposes. According to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (n.d), Senecio asirensis has the following classification.

Kingdom Plantae
Phylum Tracheophyta
      Class Magnoliopsida
         Order Asterales
               Family Asteraceae
                  Genus Senecio
                        Species Senecio asirensis

It is an annual, perennial herb or shrub sometimes scandent with alternate leaves. The inflorescence is compound with multi-headed cymes or panicles. The capitulum is discoid or radiate, usually stalked, often forms corymbose cymes, involucre generally with a single row of phyllaries subtended by small calyculus of much smaller bracts, phyllaries are free with membranous margin. Flowers are yellow anthers ecaudate or sagittate at base,

The fruits are achenes cylindrical appendiculate at the apex, style branches obtuse with a ring or hairs, and stigmatic lines. (Senecio L, n.d).Different authors have put forward the different types of traditional usages of Senecio asirensis, and according to Sher and Alyemeni (2011), it belongs to one of the pharmaceutically essential plants used in the conventional system of Arab system of medicine. The extracts of this plant were utilized for the treatment of livestock ailments at an early age. Later on, it found its usage in various other parameters like gastrointestinal disorders, fever, cough, respiratory tract infection, urinary tract infection, promote lactation, healing of wounds, etc., and it was used as a plant of veterinary importance. Besides, there has been extensive use of essential oils form different medicinal plants, including Senecio asirensis (Srivastava et al., 2019). Authors shave developed and perfected the process of extraction of different types of phytochemicals from Senecio sp. significant focus has been on the pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) and its implications in toxicity. The pyrrolizidine alkaloids are toxic to the herbivores, and the plants produce these alkaloids as a strategy against herbivory. The tests indicated very high PA concentrations and diversity amounting to 57 compounds, including the highly toxic 1,2-unsaturated PAs (Castells et al., 2014).

Different workers have highlighted the aspect of plant products as active botanical compounds with pharmacological as well as other properties, and research has authenticated numerous applications in almost all spheres like anti-microbial, anti-fungal, insecticide, repellent, etc. ( Hou et al. 2014, Souza et al. 2015), etc. However, there are also reports of health aspects of the use of Senecio asirensis extract where human health, as well as critical toxicity, has been reported in case of cattle (Panziera et al.,2018); Siedle et al. (2003), Amorim et al. (2103), Türkez et al. (2014), etc.

For Module 11, we’ve read a variety of poems centered on the topic...