Witnessed by: Ayurveda · Western · Unani
Fumitory (Fumaria parviflora), of the Papaveraceae (Fumariaceae) family. Slender, straggling annual herb with much-divided grey-green leaves; native range: A weed of fields and waste ground across the Mediterranean, western Asia and the Indian plains. Globally recognized as parpata / parpataka / pittapapada in Sanskrit, pitpapra, shahtara in Hindi, shahtaraj (شاهترج) in Arabic, and fine-leaved fumitory, earth-smoke, small-flowered fumitory in English. The part used is whole flowering herb (aerial parts). A soft, glaucous, feathery herb bearing tiny pink-and-dark-tipped tubular flowers; the fresh plant is markedly bitter with a saline, watery after-taste.
In this cross-tradition database, we analyze how this substance operates across world medicine systems — tracking its traditional tastes, temperatures, tissue affinities, post-digestive effects, and planetary correspondences across Ayurveda, Unani, and Western herbalism.
FUMITORY
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- Fumitory
- Scientific name
- Fumaria parviflora Lam.
- Family
- Papaveraceae (Fumariaceae)
Form
- Part used
- whole flowering herb (aerial parts)
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- Ayurveda
- bitter (tikta) · astringent (kashaya)
- Western
- bitter
- Unani
- bitter
Temperature
Ayurveda: cooling (shita)
Western: cool
Unani: hot & dry (1st degree)
convergence: the Indian and Western readings meet in coolness while Unani reads a warm, bile-cutting dryness — a genuine divergence over the same blood-cleansing weed
Affinity
where in the body it travels
Organs / channels
- Western
- liver · blood · skin
- Unani
- liver · spleen · stomach
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- Ayurveda
- pittahara (cools pitta), raktashodhaka (blood-purifier), jvaraghna (antipyretic), kushthaghna (for skin disease), kandughna (antipruritic), mild dipana
- Western
- alterative, blood-cleanser, mild diuretic and aperient, cholagogue and bitter tonic to the liver
- Unani
- musaffi-e-dam (blood-purifier), mushil-e-safra wa sauda (purges bile and black bile), daf-e-hummiyat (antipyretic), muhallil (resolvent)
Cautions
- Contraindications
- cold, depleted and vata-predominant constitutions, where its bitter cooling is unsuitable; caution in pregnancy given its purgative tendency
- Toxicity
- low; large or prolonged doses may gripe and loosen the bowel and cause drowsiness. The isoquinoline alkaloids (protopine and kin) are mildly active but the herb is well tolerated at customary dose.
This is the card. Sign in for the full four-tradition entry — the aligned TCM · Ayurveda · Western · Unani reading, actions, dosing and cautions.