Witnessed by: Western
Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), of the Araceae family. Stemless perennial of the arum kind from a thick vertical rootstock with crowded fleshy rootlets, throwing up a mottled purple-green hood in earliest spring before its very large cabbage-like leaves; native range: swamps, wet woods and boggy meadows of eastern North America, from Canada south to Georgia and west to Iowa. Globally recognized as skunk cabbage · dracontium · meadow cabbage · polecat weed · swamp cabbage in English. The part used is root and rootstock. The fresh root strongly and offensively fetid — rank, skunk-like, garlicky — the smell diminishing much on drying; the taste at first mild, then sharply acrid and intensely biting, with a prickling, needling burn in the mouth and throat and a lasting numbness. The drug is nearly inert when old, the acridity and the odour going together.
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.
SKUNK CABBAGE
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- skunk cabbage
- Scientific name
- Symplocarpus foetidus (L.) Salisb. ex W.P.C.Barton
- Family
- Araceae
Form
- Part used
- root and rootstock
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- Western
- acrid · pungent
Temperature
- Western
- warm
Affinity
where in the body it travels
Organs / channels
- Western
- lungs · nervous system
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- Western
- antispasmodic, stimulating expectorant, diaphoretic, and a mild narcotic relaxant to the nervous system; in large doses emetic
Cautions
- Contraindications
- pregnancy; acute gastric or intestinal inflammation; irritable and ulcerated gut
- Toxicity
- the fresh plant is intensely acrid and will blister — the burning is that of the arum family, and the calcium oxalate raphides in the tissue drive needle-fine crystals into any membrane they touch, so the fresh root is not tasted or handled carelessly and never applied to a raw surface. Large doses bring nausea, vomiting, headache, vertigo and dimness of vision. The acridity is largely lost on drying and keeping, which makes an old sample feeble rather than poisonous — but it also makes dosing on unknown stock unreliable in both directions.
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