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Elisabeth C. Miller Library

Keyword: Medicinal plants

historical medicinal uses of asafetida

What can you tell me about asafetida? I know it is used in cooking (especially in India), but is it used medicinally?

 

The plant source of asafetida is Ferula assa-foetida, a perennial in the Apiaceae (carrot) family. As you mention, it is used in cooking, primarily the cooked leaves and shoots, but also the sap or gum which is extracted from the plant’s roots and dried as resin or pulverized into powder. It has a very pungent sulfurous odor, especially in resin form. In Africa, Ferula was a substitute for Silphium, whose extinction was recorded by Pliny the Elder in 77 C.E.

The plant resin is also used medicinally in other parts of the world, including the Middle East and Europe. Around the world, it has an array of common names, many of them variants on devil’s excrement, due to the odor.

According to Judith Taylor’s Plants in the Civil War, asafetida came to America with enslaved Africans who had multiple medicinal, magical, and apotropaic (protective, warding off evil) uses for it. Among enslaved people in this country, there was a tradition of wearing a red flannel bag containing the plant’s roots and additives like red pepper, sassafras, and snakeroot. Colin Fitzgerald’s “African American Slave Medicine of the 19th Century” (Bridgewater State University Undergraduate Review, 12, 44-50, 2016) goes into greater depth. Here is an excerpt:

“Victoria Adams, of Columbia, South Carolina, recalls using the plant as a preventive measure against diseases on her plantation,'[w]e dipped asafetida in turpentine and hung it ‘round our necks to keep off disease’ (Slave Narratives). Asafetida was used as preventative against a number of pulmonary diseases such as whooping cough, bronchitis, small pox, and influenza. It was usually placed in a bag around someone’s neck so that they could breathe in the fumes. Asafetida is found to have worked as an anti-flatulent by reducing the amount of indigenous microflora in the gut. Because of its close relation with the famed silphium of Cyrene (belonging to the same family, ferula), it has also been reported to contain naturally occurring organic contraceptive compounds.”

 

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which plant goes by the name winter cherry?

What can you tell me about a plant called winter cherry? It is supposed to have medicinal properties.

 

That common name corresponds to Withania somnifera, a plant in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). It sometimes goes by the common name Indian ginseng, though it is not botanically related to the plant ginseng. It is well-known in India by the name ashvagandha (also spelled ashwagandha). According to Naveen Patnaik’s The Garden of Life: An Introduction to the Healing Plants of India (Doubleday, 1993), the root and leaves of the plant are used in Ayurvedic medicine for a wide range of conditions. (The fruit is not used, and is poisonous.) It is considered an adaptogen, i.e., useful in adapting to various kinds of stress. The Sanskrit and Hindi names refer to the odor of the root, said to smell like the sweat of horses.

As the Latin species name indicates, the plant contains substances (alkaloids) that can induce drowsiness. The plant’s names in Hebrew (Vitania m’shakeret) and Arabic (saykaran, samm al ferakh) also indicate its soporific or intoxicating properties. [Sources: Flora of Israel Online, and A Herbal of Iraq, edited by Shahina A. Ghazanfar and Chris J. Thorogood] In fact, it has been studied as a sleep aid.

According to the Iraqi herbal cited above, human uses of Withania somnifera go as far back as ancient Egypt. Fruiting branches were found in the floral burial collar of Tutankhamun. Here is the Metropolitan Museum’s description of the object: “Among the most remarkable objects found in KV 54 are three astonishingly well preserved collars of plant leaves, berries, and flowers. The color scheme was derived from alternating rows of olive leaves with the silvery undersides showing and olive leaves with the dark green upper sides showing, orange-red berries of Withania somnifera, blue cornflowers, and tiny blue faience beads, as well as yellow flowers of oxtongue (Picris asplenoides).”

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Yungcautnguuq nunam qainga tamarmi = All the land’s surface is medicine : edible and medicinal plants of southwest Alaska

For 15 years, the Elisabeth C. Miller Library has been hosting an exhibit by the Pacific Northwest Botanical Artists every spring.  These artists keep alive a tradition of many centuries by creating scientifically accurate portrayals of the flowers, leaves, seeds, and other parts of plants, often with more detail and accuracy than a photograph.

One of the local, participating artist is Sharon Birzer.  Recently, she illustrated many of the native plants of southwest Alaska, published in “Yungcautnguuq nunam qainga tamarmi = All the Land’s Surface is Medicine.”  This new book is written by a consortium of experts in cultural anthropology, ethnobotany, and the Yup’ik language, and is based on a 20-year oral history project to preserve the stories of elders and their traditional way of life.

The book is divided equally into two parts.  The first is a catalog of the native plants used for food or medicine, organized by the time of harvest and starting with the plants that define the spring after long, cold winters.  One example is Mertensia maritima or Neqnirliaraat, literally “best-tasting things,” a plant I grow in my garden.  Although not widely used, “one Nelson Island woman reported collecting them before they flowered, cooking the stems briefly, and eating them with seal oil.”

The traditional tales of the plants and the land where they grow are collected in the second half of the book.  Quoting many of the elders, these entries are in English on the left page, and in Yup’ik on the right.  This includes “mouse foods,” caches of plants parts harvested and stored by voles and lemmings before the onset of winter, and an important source of food for humans.

Winner of the 2022 Annual Literature Award from the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries.

Excerpted from the Fall 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Growing hawthorn in the Pacific Northwest

Hawthorn fruit is valued in traditional Chinese medicine for digestion, circulation, blood pressure, and anything to do with the heart. What types of hawthorn could I grow here in the Pacific Northwest that share the same medicinal properties as the ones used in China? I found some fruit on a tree in my neighborhood that reminds me of the dried hawthorn fruit we used, but someone told me this was a strawberry tree, not a hawthorn.

 

Strawberry tree is the common name for Arbutus unedo. Its very bumpy fruit is edible but not especially tasty (the species name means ‘I eat one,’ because one would be enough to convince the eater to seek a better food source!). Unlike deciduous hawthorns, Arbutus is evergreen. I can imagine, if you have only seen medicinal hawthorn fruit in dried form, it would be easy to mistake it for the strawberry tree’s fruit. Chinese hawthorn fruit has a comparatively smooth surface, though it is dotted with lenticels (that allow for exchange of gases between the outside world and the fruit’s interior).

We are not medical professionals, so we cannot address the medicinal benefits of any plant. However, there are several species of Crataegus (hawthorn) that are native to China, and some of these have fruit considered useful for the medicinal purposes you mention. The species that come up most often are Crataegus pinnatifida (shan zha) and Crataegus hupehensis. In the article “Hawthorn (Crataegus) Resources in China” (Taijun Guo and Peijuan Jiao, HortScience, Vol. 30(6), October 1995), there is a list of all the species that grow in various regions of China. The most useful ones are likely those that have sizeable fruit. There are also quite a few cultivated varieties, especially of C. pinnatifida, C. scabrifolia, and C. hupehensis. There is some history of hawthorn’s medicinal use in Europe as well, but with different species (mainly Crataegus monogyna–an unregulated noxious weed in King County– and Crataegus laevigata, previously called C. oxyacantha).

If you search online nursery inventory for the Chinese hawthorn species mentioned above, you will see that a cultivar of Crataegus pinnatifida called ‘Red Sun’ is available from Raintree Nursery in Washington, and One Green World in Oregon. You could certainly try growing it here, provided you have the right space for a 15-foot tree that needs full sun. When the fruits ripen (in the fall here), you could even scoop out the seeds, fill them with red bean paste, skewer them, and dip them in sugar syrup to make tanghulu, a treat for Chinese New Year.

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Just the Tonic: A Natural History of Tonic Water

[Just the Tonic] cover

The Miller Library has other books on cinchona (the plant source of quinine), gin (from juniper), and various plant-based spirits, but Just the Tonic focuses on the evolution of this effervescent beverage, a journey from cinchona-derived medicinal preparations to treat fever, purportedly healthful restoratives for a host of ailments (the kombucha and CBD of earlier eras!), to a recreational beverage we still consume with or without spirits. Along the way, the authors touch on the history of malaria and its treatment, the effects of conquest and imperialism, how humans have harvested and stored ice since Mesopotamia’s tamarisk-lined icehouses of nearly 4,000 years ago, and so many other fascinating morsels of information. The book is profusely illustrated and captivatingly written by Kim Walker (a medical herbalist and historian of plant medicines) and Mark Nesbitt (curator of the Economic Botany Collection at Kew).

The Cinchona tree is native to the high-altitude cloud forests of the Andes, from Colombia south to Peru and Chile. It is a medium-sized evergreen tree with cinnamon-colored bark and loose flower clusters said to have a fragrance similar to lilac. It is the bark which was sought for its anti-malarial properties. However, malaria was not a documented ailment in South America until the Spanish conquest, which added population density to damp lowlands where mosquitoes thrive. 1633 marks the first known reference to use of the bark of the ‘fever tree'(arbol de calenturas) in the writing of a Peru-based Spanish priest, who noted that the bark could be dried, pulverized, and dissolved in a drink that would treat the fevers malaria causes. Eventually, the medicinal use of cinchona bark reached Europe. We tend to think of malaria as a tropical ailment, but marshy regions of western Europe harbor a less severe strain of the illness.

Cinchona bark is intensely bitter, so it was made palatable with port wine, herbs, treacle or syrup, citrus peel, and occasionally opium, in an assortment of proprietary formulations. (Advertisements for these are among the colorful illustrations in the book.) Where there is a market for a plant-based remedy, there is a motive for plant exploration, and this led to overharvesting and worker exploitation in South America. Plantations were also created in Java. But the amount of quinine present in the many species of Cinchona varies, and botanists had a challenge in telling species apart based on their dried bark. In the early 19th century, French chemists isolated two of the alkaloids found in the bark—cinchonine and quinine. This facilitated dosage measurement, an important thing, because too little is ineffective and too much is dangerous (even today there are instances of avid homebrewers developing cinchonism from an overdose of quinine).

Because of quinine’s toxicity and decreasing efficacy (the parasites were becoming resistant to it), there was a shift in the 20th century toward synthetic antimalaria drugs such as chloroquine (a name that may have a recent familiar ring to it!). Still, tonic water—like the Schweppes Bitter Lemon I remember drinking on hot days in Israel—remains associated with the eradication of malaria (though the amount of quinine in such drinks is minimal). For me, it conjured the history of Jewish immigrants draining swamps in the valleys and coastal plains of British Mandate Palestine. (By 1968, Israel was deemed malaria-free.)

The tonic water we know today was inspired by the popularity of visiting natural mineral springs, beginning in the times of the Roman Empire. Scientists in the 18th century strove to come up with a way to simulate this effervescence associated with healthful benefits by contrast with turbid swamp water), and gradually refined their devices for creating “bubbling scintillation” (see the illustration of an apparatus for “impregnating water with fixed air”) in a laboratory setting. Eventually, soda water became ubiquitous in soda fountains and grocery stores. These days, one can even make sparkling soda at the touch of a button, at home. Kew has created its own Royal Botanic Tonic and organic gin, and the book’s final chapter includes recipes for cocktails and mocktails. Bottoms up!

About Smilax bona-nox

Can you identify a plant growing at my mother’s house in Georgia? We would like to know more about it.

 

This is Smilax bona-nox. It goes by many evocative names, and even the scientific name had me wondering. Why is the species name “good-night?” It was named by Linnaeus and in his time bona-nox would have served as a euphemistic Latin curse (the way someone might say dadgummit, goldarnit, or flipping heck), possibly uttered after getting ensnared in this viny plant’s thorns. According to Delena Tull, author of Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest (1999 ed.), encounters with the curved prickles give rise to common names like catbrier (or catbriar) and blaspheme-vine. Other common names include saw greenbrier (or saw briar) and tramp’s trouble. It is also called zarzaparilla (Anglicized to sarsaparilla from the Spanish name which means bramble + little grape vine).

According to the Virginia Native Plant Society, the fruit of Smilax species is valued by birds, bears, foxes, possums, and squirrels. The flowers are nectar and pollen sources for bees and flies, and the leaves host the larvae of caterpillar moths. The Native American Ethnobotany Database lists medicinal uses of this species of Smilax by the Seminole, Choctaw, Houma, and Creek tribes. The Choctaw and Houma ground the dried tuberous roots into flour for use in bread and cakes. The Comanche used the leaves as cigarette rolling papers.

About the common name sarsaparilla, you may be familiar with this word as flavoring sometimes used in the beverage known as root beer. A traditional tonic made with the rhizomes was thought to ward off rheumatism. Both Smilax and Sassafras have been used in flavoring root beer, but Sassafras root bark contains safrole, a carcinogenic substance, and the Food and Drug Administration banned its use in food in 1960. There is now a safrole-free extract that is allowed in food.

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Growing conditions for Coleus forskohlii

I want to know about Coleus forskohlii a plant of South Africa. What growing conditions does it need, and what are its medicinal properties?

 

The plant you ask about is Coleus forskohlii (also known as Plectranthus forskohlii) in the family of plants called Lamiaceae. If your growing conditions resemble those of its native range (it grows wild in parts of West Bengal), you may be able to grow this plant.

The article entitled “Development of Coleus forskohlii as a medicinal crop” (no longer available online) from the Food and Agriculture Organization gives much information of interest. Here is an excerpt:

Coleus forskohlii grows wild on sun-exposed arid and semi-arid hill slopes of the Himalayas from Simla eastward to Sikkim and Bhutan, Deccan Plateau, Eastern Ghats, Eastern Plateau and rainshadow regions of the Western Ghats in India. Latitudinal and altitudinal range for the occurrence of the species is between 8 degrees and 31 degrees N and 600-800 m respectively. The species was studied for its ecological preferences in its native habitats throughout its distribution range excluding Eastern Plateau, Sikkim and Bhutan. Before the botanical studies were undertaken, the species was studied in the regional floras and herbarium specimens were examined in seven zonal herbaria of the botanical survey of India at Dehra Dun (Himalayan flora), Allahabad (Central India flora), Shillong (northeastern India flora), Jodhpur (Rajasthan flora), Pune (western India flora), Coimbatore (southern India flora) and Port Blair (Andaman and Nicobar group of islands flora), as well as at the Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun and the Blatter Herbarium in Bombay. Eleven representative ecogeographic areas were selected for habitat and population studies; between 1982 and 1985, 27 botanical trips were made for the purpose. Coleus-growing areas in the Himalayas in Uttar Pradesh were visited every month from April to December, and the other areas were visited at least twice during the blooming period. The following is the summary of the observations made on different populations and habitats of C. forskohlii (Shah 1989).

C. forskohlii is a subtropical and warm temperate species naturally growing at 600-1800 m elevation

The species grows on sun-exposed hill slopes and plateaus in arid and semi-arid climatic zones

The species inhabits loamy or sandy-loam soil with 6.4 to 7.9 pH

The species is herbaceous with annual stems and perennial rootstock

The medicinal uses of this plant have not been evaluated fully for safety. Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center also has useful information about Coleus forskohlii. Here is a brief excerpt: “Very limited data are available concerning the efficacy of forskolin. Most studies performed with forskolin have been human trials; those performed on heart failure and glaucoma are inconclusive.”

As with any drug or herbal medicine, you should consult a medical professional if you have questions about its use.

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on harvesting sassafras bark for tea

When and how do I harvest bark from my Sassafras tree to make tea?

 

I would suggest proceeding with extreme caution, and talking to your physician before endeavoring to make sassafras tea. According to Medical Botany: Plants Affecting Human Health by Walter Lewis (Wiley, 2003), the active component in Sassafras albidum, safrole, is no longer generally regarded as safe. It is toxic to the liver and can cause cancer. There is information on sassafras here from the Natural Medicine Database. A now-unavailable article on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website included this description of sassafras as a tea ingredient:
“Aromatic sassafras tea, once popular as a stimulant and blood thinner and as a reputed cure for rheumatism and syphilis, causes cancer in rats when taken in large amounts. Oil of sassafras and safrole, major chemical components of the aromatic oil in sassafras root bark, were taken out of root beer more than 30 years ago. And sassafras bark was banned from use in all food. Safrole-free extract, however, is allowed in food.”

Although historical sources may discuss the best time to harvest parts of the Sassasfras plant for medicinal uses, I would recommend against using it for this purpose, given the associated health risks. Tyler’s Honest Herbal by Steven Foster and Varro Tyler says that the root bark was used as a febrifuge prior to 1512 by native dwellers in Florida. The fact that its reputation for usefulness persists is mainly due to its pleasant aroma and flavor, but the authors make clear that it is unsafe.

You are welcome to come in to the Miller Library and explore our resources on medicinal plants and herbs, but I would not advise you to follow any recipes you might find there.

khat tree intoxication

Recently I met an Ethiopian couple who were picking the reddened leaves on an otherwise green bush/tree in my front yard. The man explained this was a “cat” or “chat” tree, the leaves produce a drugged like state when ingested. He asked me if he could harvest the tree, and asked me not to tell any other Somalis, Ethiopians, or Eritreans in the neighborhood about my tree. He also told me that if I lived in Mogadishu, this tree would make me a wealthy man! He ate some leaves in front of me, and I tried a couple, but they were bitter and unpalatable to my palate. I experienced a feeling of empowerment, strength, and mental alertness. Obviously the “Chat Tree” has some relationship to the “Bongo” young Somalis chew.

During the worst of the anarchy in the late 1990s in Mogadishu there was a lot of news footage of the street gangs, high on the plant they were chewing, and armed with machine guns and machetes, creating havoc.

Do you know the history of this tree?

What are the properties that cause the intoxication?

What is the tree’s botanical name?

Should I report the tree’s existence to the authorities?

Can you tell me what I have here?

p.s.-These trees are common front garden bushes that were widely planted in Perth, Western Australia. Next time I see someone hanging out under one of them, I think I will know why!

The chat, or khat tree, is Catha edulis (Celastrus edulis), and the leaves and branchlets have properties that stimulate the central nervous system. In addition to the euphoric or inebriating properties, chewing the leaves can cause irritability, decreased appetite, gastric upset, constipation, and inflammation of the mouth. Habitual use can lead to periodontal disease, and increased risk of esophageal cancer. The active compounds are Alkaloid D-norpseudoephedrine, as well as other alkaloids, and tannins. (Source: Medical Botany: Plants Affecting Human Health by Walter H. Lewis; John Wiley & Sons, 2003, 2nd ed.)

The Handbook of Medicinal Herbs by James A. Duke (CRC Press, 2002, 2nd ed.) indicates that Catha edulis has been used medicinally to treat a great number of ailments, including asthma, depression, diarrhea, glaucoma, and low blood pressure. Use of khat is an ancient, socially acceptable tradition in the Afro-Arabian culture (and became known as a recreational drug in the USA after American soldiers were exposed to its use in Somalia. Khat is subject to legal restrictions in many countries. (Medicinal Plants of the World by Ben-Erik van Wyk; Timber Press, 2004).

As for whether to report the harvesting of leaves from your tree, that would depend on whether khat use is specifically prohibited by law in Australia.

on Artemisia ludoviciana

Can you tell me about an herb called Estafiate (I think it’s Spanish)? What would the English name be, and how is it used?

 

There isn’t always a straightforward link between a common name and a specific scientific name, but it seems that Estafiate usually refers to Artemisia ludoviciana, possibly the subspecies mexicana, which goes by several different English common names, including white sagebrush, prairie sage, Louisiana sage, and Mexican wormwood. The USDA taxonomy website has information about this plant, as does their general plant database.

Duke’s Handbook of Medicinal Plants of Latin America by James A. Duke (CRC Press, 2009) lists Estafiate as Artemisia ludoviciana and several other synonymous names. Its diverse uses include analgesic, antiseptic, and fungicidal but it also has dermatitigenic and carcinogenic properties and is elsewhere (FDA) classified as a poisonous plant. One should never attempt to use a medicinal plant without full medical knowledge and consultation with a health professional! The plant has been used by Native American (Blackfoot, Apache, Cheyenne and other tribes)as well as Mexican practitioners.

Another Spanish common name for the same or similar plant is Ajenjo, which may refer to Artemisia absinthium, which is the same plant from which Absinthe is historically derived. Missouri Botanical Garden has a website with information about this species Artemisia.