Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Levisticum officinale
Pronounced Lovage: LUV-ij. Levisticum officinale: leh-VISS-tih-kum oh-fiss-ih-NAH-lee.
Warm and drying: a pungent, savory, aromatic stimulant that warms and rouses a cold, torpid digestion and drains the boggy, waterlogged fluids of the still-water terrain.
Avoid in pregnancy. Lovage root is a traditional emmenagogue and uterine stimulant with an old reputation for bringing on delayed menses, and modern authorities place it among the herbs to avoid in pregnancy on that basis. The European Medicines Agency HMPC assessment of Levisticum officinale radix states that safety in pregnancy has not been established and that use during pregnancy is not recommended; the German Commission E and Brinker likewise caution against its use in pregnancy for its emmenagogue and reputed abortifacient action, and the root's phototoxic furanocoumarins add further reason for caution. The consumer-safe course is to avoid medicinal doses of lovage root, seed, and essential oil throughout pregnancy. Ordinary culinary use of the leaf as a flavoring is a food-level exposure of far lower concern, but concentrated preparations should be avoided.
Insufficient data; avoid medicinal doses during lactation without professional guidance. The EMA HMPC assessment notes that safety during breastfeeding has not been established and does not recommend use for want of adequate data, and Herbal Reality advises avoiding lovage in lactation and using it only under the guidance of a medical herbalist. Culinary use of the leaf as a flavoring is a food-level exposure of low concern; concentrated root, seed, and essential-oil preparations should await better data or qualified supervision.
No established pediatric use; avoid medicinal doses in children. The EMA HMPC assessment did not establish safety or dosing in those under 18 years and did not recommend the medicinal product in that group for want of data. Culinary use of the leaf as a food flavoring is of low concern, but the concentrated root, seed, and essential-oil preparations, and especially the phototoxic essential oil, should be kept from young children and used in older children only under qualified guidance.
Lovage is a widely eaten culinary herb with a good record of safety at food levels, but its concentrated medicinal preparations carry real cautions. The root's volatile oils are irritating to inflamed kidney tissue, so it must not be used in acute kidney inflammation or impaired kidney function, nor as a flushing/irrigation therapy where edema arises from impaired heart or kidney function (Commission E; EMA HMPC). The root and essential oil contain phototoxic furanocoumarins: skin contact with the fresh plant or the oil, followed by sun or UV exposure, can cause phototoxic dermatitis, blistering, and lingering hyperpigmentation, so handle the fresh plant and oil with care and keep sun off exposed skin. It is a traditional emmenagogue and should be avoided in pregnancy. Ensure a generous fluid intake when using it as a urinary flushing therapy, and do not use it that way in known renal disease without medical supervision.
Acute inflammatory disease of the kidneys or urinary tract and impaired renal function (irritating volatile oils). Edema or dropsy due to impaired cardiac or renal function, for which flushing therapy is contraindicated (Commission E). Pregnancy (emmenagogue and uterine-stimulant action, with a reputed abortifacient history) and lactation without qualified guidance (insufficient data). Known hypersensitivity to lovage or to other Apiaceae/Umbelliferae (celery, fennel, carrot) and phototoxic reactivity to furanocoumarins. Caution with concurrent diuretics, lithium, anticoagulants, and photosensitizing drugs (see drug interactions).
Levisticum officinale is a hardy, vigorous garden perennial, widely cultivated and in no way at risk; it is not listed by United Plant Savers. A single plant is long-lived and easily propagated by seed or root division and self-sows freely, so home-grown and cultivated root is abundant and sustainable. Because it is so readily grown, wildcrafting pressure is negligible: the most sustainable source is simply a plant in the garden, harvesting root from mature (2 to 3 year) plants and leaving divisions to regrow.
Not found in the canonical biblical texts. Lovage is a herb of the ancient Mediterranean rather than of Scripture: it is generally identified with the ligystikon of Dioscorides (De Materia Medica, 1st century AD) and the ligusticum of Pliny the Elder (Natural History, 1st century AD), who linked its name to the region of Liguria on the Italian coast where it grew, and from that Late Latin ligusticum/levisticum the English 'lovage' descends. It passed into the monastery and cottage gardens of medieval Europe, appearing in Charlemagne's Capitulare de villis and the plan of the St. Gall garden, and is described in the early modern herbals of Gerard, Parkinson, and Culpeper (1653). Cited honestly as a herb of Greco-Roman and European tradition, not of the biblical canon.
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