Mayapple

Podophyllum peltatum

American Mandrake Ducks Foot Ground Lemon Hog Apple Indian Apple Lang-tu Love Apples Mandragora Mandrake Mayapple Racoon Berry Umbrella Plant Wild Lemon Wild Mandrake Parts used Uses Habitat and cultivation Research Constituents

Mayapple - this perennial grows one to two feet tall. One or two large leaves unfold like umbrellas, and a solitary white blossom forms below them. The mayapple's rhizome is thick and reddish brown. Its fruit is small and yellow.

The umbrella like leaves of the mayapple are a common sight in woodlands, where the plant is native. Mayapple was well known to North American Indians, who valued it for its powerful laxative effect, as a treatment for intestinal worms, as a cure for warts, and even as an insecticide for use on their crops. Apparently the Indians recognized mayapple's toxic qualities; it is said that they sometimes ate the roots and shoots to commit suicide.

Indians also ate the mayapple's fruits (the only part of the plant that is not poisonous), as many people do to this day. Some, however, say they are insipid. One 19th-century botanist dismissed them as "somewhat mawkish, beloved of pigs, raccoons, and small boys."

The plant's creeping rhizome, pencil-thin and up to 6 feet long, is the part that is used for medicinal purposes. Gathered in autumn as the plants are dying down, the rhizomes are dried and crushed into a powder. Although the remedy has traditionally been used to treat conditions ranging from liver ailments to cancers, mayapple remains best known as a laxative. But its purgative action is so strong that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration lists this use of the plant as "unsafe."

PARTS USED

Rhizome.

USES

Mayapple gets its Latin name from the Greek words podos and phyllon (foot-shaped leaves); peltatum means "shield like". While the mayapple's ripe fruit is edible, and jellies and juices are prepared from it, the root, leaves, seeds, and unripe fruit all can be poisonous. To encourage children to stay away from the poisonous mayapple, their elders traditionally taught them that it was tended by the devil. Native Americans used the root, the fruit, or decoctions of the whole plant as insecticides.

Native North American tribes drank a brew made from the dried, ground rhizome as a treatment for intestinal worms, as an antidote for snakebite, and as a laxative. This herb was formerly used as one of the laxative ingredients in the over -the-counter medication called "Carter's Little Liver Pills." Extracts of mayapple are currently administered externally to treat genital warts and some skin cancers. Podophyllotoxin, a potentially lethal component of mayapple, blocks cell division and has tumor-inhibiting properties. Two medications derived from it are approved for use in the United States. Etoposide is used to treat testicular and small-cell lung cancer. Teniposide is employed with brain tumors and childhood leukemia. The FDA has warned against mayapple as a laxative because of its potential toxicity.

Despite 19th-century beliefs in its safety, American mandrake is no longer taken internally because of its cytotoxic (cell-killing) action. However, applied externally as a poultice, lotion, or ointment, the root can be an effective treatment for all kinds of warts.

Other medical uses
Homeopathy.

HABITAT AND CULTIVATION

Indigenous to the eastern United States and southern Canada, American mayapple usually grows in patches.

RESEARCH

The lignans in mayapple - podophyllotoxin in particular - act against tumors and have been extensively researched for their anticancer potential. Semi synthetic derivatives of podophyllotoxin appear to be the most promising, having minimal toxicity.

CONSTITUENTS

The rhizome of mayapple contains lignans (especially podophyllotoxin), flavonoids, resin, and gums. The lignans are responsible for the rhizome's purgative action.