Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Menyanthes trifoliata
Also known as Buckbean
Pronounced Bogbean: BOG-been (Buckbean: BUK-been). Menyanthes trifoliata: men-ee-AN-theez try-foh-lee-AY-tuh.
Cold, dry, and intensely bitter: a bog-born bitter tonic that kindles a torpid, atonic digestion, moves a sluggish liver, and cools rheumatic and cutaneous heat.
Avoid. No safety data in pregnancy; EMA/HMPC advises a precautionary approach and non-use, and consumer references (Natural Medicines/WebMD) rate medicinal amounts possibly unsafe owing to gastrointestinal irritation and diarrhea risk. Trace culinary or flavoring amounts are not the concern, but therapeutic bitter doses should be avoided.
Insufficient data; avoid. EMA/HMPC reports no lactation data, and excretion into milk and effects on the infant are unstudied. Precautionary avoidance recommended.
No pediatric dosing established. Bitter tonics are generally reserved for adults; the intense bitterness and purgative potential at higher doses make bogbean unsuitable for young children. EMA/HMPC does not recommend use in children and adolescents under 18 years. No modern pediatric safety data.
Intensely bitter; doses above the tonic range are purgative and emetic, causing nausea, vomiting, griping, and diarrhea. Cold and drying: unsuitable for cold-deficient digestion with loose stools and for the frail, dry, or depleted. Contraindicated in active peptic (gastric or duodenal) ulcer and in diarrhea, dysentery, or inflammatory bowel disease. Keep to small bitter-tonic doses, taken shortly before meals for appetite and digestion.
Active gastric or duodenal ulcer (EMA/HMPC contraindication); acute diarrhea, dysentery, or inflammatory bowel disease; known hypersensitivity to the herb. Avoid in pregnancy and lactation (no safety data). Not for use above traditional tonic doses.
Bogbean is an obligate wetland plant of peat bogs, fens, marshes, and shallow pond margins, habitats that are declining and legally protected in parts of its range (Grieve already noted it as scarce in southern England). It is not listed by United Plant Savers (a Eurasian-centered species), but its bog and fen habitats are fragile, slow to recover, and ecologically valuable. Source from cultivated stock or responsibly managed wetlands; do not wild-harvest from sensitive or protected peatlands.
Not in canonical biblical texts. Menyanthes trifoliata is a circumboreal wetland species of Europe, northern Asia, and North America belonging to Western and Northern European folk and American Eclectic traditions rather than the Mediterranean biblical materia medica. Documented by Grieve (A Modern Herbal, 1931) and the American Eclectics (King's, 1898); historically used in Scotland, Scandinavia, and northern Europe as a spring bitter, an antiscorbutic, and a hop substitute in brewing.
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