Thalictrum occidentale - western meadowrue

Family: Ranunculaceae (Buttercup family)

Medicinal Gitksan: A small piece of the root chewed, and some of the juice swallowed, for headache, eye trouble, and sore legs. Loosened phlegm and possibly accelerated the circulation of the blood.

THALICTRUM MEADOW-RUE
Bruce D. Parfitt & Dieter H. Wilken

Perennial herb from caudex or rhizomes, generally glabrous; dioecious or flowers bisexual. Stem: 1–few, generally erect; branches 0 or few. Leaf: 1–4-ternate or pinnate, basal or basal and cauline, alternate, generally reduced distally on stem; leaflets wedge-shaped to ± round, entire, crenate, or lobed; pale green abaxially, generally green adaxially. Inflorescence: raceme or panicle, axillary or terminal, generally erect, ± scapose or not; bracts simple to 1-ternate; pedicels generally erect in fruit. Flower: sepals 4–5, ± green-white to ± purple, petal-like or not, generally early-deciduous; petals 0; stamens 8–many, generally > sepals, filaments flat or generally thread-like, anthers generally narrowly oblong, tip generally pointed; pistils (1)2–22. Fruit: achene, compressed laterally or not, ribbed or veined, beaked.
120–200 species: temperate North America, Eurasia, Africa; some ornamental, medicinal. (Greek: name given by Dioscorides, Greek physician-botanist) [Park & Festerling 1997 FNANM 3:258–271]

Local Species;

1. Thalictrum alpinum - Alpine meadowrue (Haida Gwaii)
2. Thalictrum occidentale - western meadowrue

Uses of Related Sp
Thalictrum minus Linnaeus
lesser meadow-rue
Eurasia, Alaska; introduced into New Zealand
Widespread round the coast of Scotland, especially in the calcareous coastal grassland of its north and west known as machair, and on sand dunes, Thalictrum minus evidently substituted there for the more southerly T. flavum. Known as rú beag, it was valued in the Highlands primarily as a purge,59 sometimes taken expressly to kill parasitic worms.60 James Robertson on his 1768 tour found a decoction in use by women in Skye and Mull for obstruction of the menses.61 On Colonsay, on the other hand, it was said to have been a remedy for rheumatism.62[MPFT]

Thalictrum flavum Linnaeus common meadow-rue
Europe, temperate Asia
The roots of all species of the genus Thalictrum, especially T. flavum, are known to be powerful laxatives, earning the collective name ‘false rhubarb’. It is the ‘tops’, however, which feature in the sole record of its use for this purpose which has been encountered: in Buckinghamshire, boiled in ale.58[MPFT]

Purple Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum Fisch. & Lall.) 240 “akwatîci'wûk” [mint leaf]. The Prairie Potawatomi called this plant “kakaki'wûskwe” [crow woman weed], and the seed of the plant is used as a love medicine. When a man and his wife have been quarreling, the seeds are surreptitiously placed in their food to overcome the quarrelsome dispositions. The Forest Potawatomi use the leaves and the seeds in combination with other materials to cure the cramps. The seeds are peppered upon the surface of poultices to make them more effective. Among the whites, 241 the root of Purple Meadow Rue is valued for its purgative and diuretic properties. The Dispensatory242 says that the Purple Meadow Rue contains berberine and has been used as a bitter and a tonic, especially useful in treating leucorrhea.[HuronSmith Zuni]

Smoke
Thalictrum dasycarpum Fisch. & Avé-Lall. (Ranunculaceae). purple meadow rue. T e Potowatomi of North America dried the seeds of this plant and then smoked them to bring good luck while hunting (Smith 1933). T e seeds were also mixed and smoked with tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) by young men wishing to call on lady friends.
Thalictrum fendleri Engelm. ex. A. Gray (Ranunculaceae). Fendler’s meadowrue. T e Native Americans of New Mexico smoked the whole plant for pleasure and to relieve headaches (Krochmal and Krochmal 1973). Other Native Americans inhaled the smoke to treat colds (Foster and Hobbs 2002).[UAPDS]

Thalictrum.—It appears probable that many species of this genus (Fam. Ranunculaceae) have active medicinal or toxic properties. In 1879 Henriot and Doassans asserted that they had separated from the roots of the Thalictrum macrocarpum Gren., a shrub of the Pyrenees, a crystalline yellow substance, having very pronounced toxic principles, analogous to those of curare; and subsequently stated (C. R. S. B., 1880) that this substance really consists of two principles,—an alkaloid, thalictrine, obtained in the form of prismatic needles, insoluble in water, soluble in alcohol, forming crystalline salts with acids, and m acrocarpin, a yellow crystalline body, soluble in water, representing the coloring principle of thalictrum. Subsequently berberine was found by Doassans and Mousset in Thalictrum flavum L., Fen Rue or Monk's Rhubarb, a shrub widely distributed in Europe and Asia, macrocarpin being, according to this authority, very closely allied to berberine, but differing in that its color is not affected by ammonia. Rochebrune (Toxicolog. Africaine, i) has found both thalictrine and macrocarpin in the roots of Thalictrum glaucum Pesf., of Spain. Thalictrine he states to be a very active cardiac poison, producing loss of power, convulsive movements, irregularity and depression of the heart's beat, and finally death in some cases in convulsions. According to Rochebrune, thalictrine also exists in the African species Thalictrum rhynchocarpum Q. Dillon and A. Rich.[Remington USD20]

[CRNAH]

[Liu CHB]

the isoquinoline alkaloid thalimonine of Thalictrum simplex inhibited influenza A replication by reducing the expression of viral neuraminidase, hemagglutinin, nucleoprotein, and virusspecific protein synthesis [107]. [ModPhyto]

References

• 2013. Thalictrum, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_IJM.pl?tid=10142, accessed on Jan 28 2015