The common name hellebore is confusing because three quite different plants are called hellebore or false hellebore. They're in the genera Helleborus, Veratrum and Adonis. Helleborus is just hellebore, Veratrum and Adonis are false hellebores, but of course sometimes the "false" is dropped.
 |
| hellebore, Helleborus |
All three are poisonous plants that have been used medicinally as purges, to cause vomiting and diarrhea. All three are sufficiently toxic as to be dangerous.
If you are looking at the plants, you wouldn't confuse them and you wouldn't see a resemblance causing you to call Veratrum and Adonis false hellebores. Helleborus is in the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. It flowers early in the spring, below toothed and divided evergreen leaves, sometimes quite large, with five to seven indentations. The flower has five petals in a ring, sort of like a rose, hence its common names Christmas rose and Lenten rose, and can be red or white or intermediate shades.
 |
| hellebore, Helleborus |
Veratrum is in the plant family Melanthiaceae, a group of monocots. The leaves are lance-shaped, without divisions, and up to a foot long, wrapped around each other. Veratrums are also called corn-lilies, the leaves reminiscent of corn, and false skunk cabbages, recognizing the big broad leaves. The flowers go way up beyond the plant in a large inflorescence with hundreds of tiny white flowers, each with six petals.
 |
| false hellebore, Veratrum |
Adonis, the other false hellebore, was used in England, when herbal medicine was more common, in the same way as Helleborus and Veratrum, as a purge; today Adonis is usually called pheasant's eye, or a half dozen other names not related to hellebore. It is a vety pretty plant and doesn't look like either of the others, tho it is in the buttercup family with Helleborus. (see Adonis: link)
The common names hellebore and false hellebore refer to their medicinal uses, not their appearances. Both Helleborus and Veratrum were called hellebore, Greek for "injurious food,"by Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the Roman army, writing in 64 AD. Dioscorides called the plant now called Helleborus niger, black hellebore because the root is black. He called the plant now given the scientific name Veratrum album white hellebore, because the root is white. Roots were the parts considered the best medicines.
Today, Helleborus is the "true hellebore" based on its scientific name. But that is only since Linnaeus in the 1750's called black hellebore Helleborus niger and white hellebore Veratrum album. Veratrum is "hellebore" in Latin, helleborus is the Greek. The species epithet niger means black, album means white. Both are quite legitimately hellebores based on their names and uses throughout European history.
 |
| hellebore, Helleborus |
In European herbal medicine, "hellebore" was used as a purge, that is, to induce vomiting and diarrhea. Both Helleborus and Veratrum are quite toxic. Vomiting and diarrhea are human responses to moderate poisoning; both plants, consumed in larger quantities, kill people. Medical practitioners from China through India into Europe used hellebore roots, generally dried and powdered, to treat conditions from epilepsy, coughs, poisoning, amenorrhea, mania, melancholy, and worms. Hellebores can be effective in purging toxins and ending stagnation, but must be handled very carefully. Reports suggest a relatively high mortality rate, though hellebore was probably used for people will severe problems, so that it was difficult to determine if hellebore or the condition it was treating was the cause of death. Modern medical sources generally call both Helleborus and Veratrum are unsafe to use as medicines.
Interestingly, although Helleborus is quite toxic, there is more problem with Veratrum poisoning, so the first page of my Google search for "hellebore poisoning" drew 11 articles on Veratrum and seven on Helleborus, even tho we mostly agree that Veratrum is "false hellebore."
Helleborus is a genus of about 20 species from Eurasia. There are no species of Helleborus native to North America. It is widely grown as a spring garden flower, from Europe to North America to Australia. People are warned that it is poisonous, but neither people nor pets are inclined to eat it.
 |
| Lots of hellebores (Helleborus) in this garden |
Veratrum is a genus of about the same size (27 species) which has wild species all across Europe, Asia, and North America. In virtually every one of the past 10 years, the medical literature reports cases of people seeing doctors for poisoning that turned out to be Veratrum poisoning. For example, home brewers in Europe mistook the European Veratrum album for yellow gentian, Gentiana lutea, used to make gentian bitters, and foragers in the U.S. who mistook V. parviflorum for Allium tricoccum (wild leek, ramps), and so on. Veratrum coming out of the ground in spring looks a lot like plants people forage for. Thus, it causes far more cases of poisoning than does Helleborus.
 |
| wild false hellebore (Veratrum tenuipetalum) in the Rocky Mountains |
It is unusual for plants to be called "false --" based on traditional uses; most "false --" plants look similar to the plant they're named after; Solomon's seal (Polygonatum) and false Solomon's seal (Smilacina), bindweed (Convolvulus) and false bindweed (Calystegia) are pairs of similar-looking plants. Hellebore and false hellebore have shared a name due to similar medicinal properties for millennia; it is impressive that they still do, since we no longer go to the apothecary and ask for hellebore to use as a purge.
Very different plants which humans have used similarly for a long time.
Comments and corrections welcome.
References
Grieve, M. 1931. A Modern Herbal. Dover, New York.
Gunther, R.T. 1934. The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides. University Press, Oxford.
Two of the case studies of Veratrum poisoning; a search will quickly find others.
Anwar, M., M. Turner, N. Farrell, W.B. Zomlefer, O M McDougal and B. W. Morgan. 2018. Hikers poisoned: Veratrum steroidal alaloid toxicity following ingestion of foraged Veratrum parviflorum. Clin. Toxicol. (Phila.) 56(9): 841-845. link
Zagler, B., A. Zelger, C. Salvatore, C. Pechlaner, F. De Giorgi, C. J. Wiedermann. 2005. Dietary poisoning with Veratrum album--two cases. Wien Klin.Wochenschr. 117 (3): 106-108. link
Related blogs: Helleborus link
Veratrum californicum / Veratrum tenuipetalum link
Kathy Keeler, A Wandering Botanist
More at awanderingbotanist.com
Join me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AWanderingBotanist
No comments:
Post a Comment