Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Spigelia marilandica
Also known as Indian Pink, Maryland Pinkroot, Wormgrass, Carolina Pink
Pronounced Pinkroot: PINK-root. Spigelia marilandica: spy-JEE-lee-uh mair-ih-LAN-dih-kuh.
Cool and drying: a bitter, acrid, narrow-margin vermifuge that drains a damp, stagnant, worm-burdened gut and expels intestinal parasites, always swept out afterward by a cathartic.
No pre-1900 source found for this reading.
UNSAFE in pregnancy; avoid entirely. Modern consumer-safety references (Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, as reported by WebMD and RxList) state plainly that it is unsafe to use pink root, even the dried preparation, during pregnancy: to be effective it must be given with a strong laxative, and strong stimulant or saline laxatives can be harmful in pregnancy, while the root's own alkaloid is a toxic, convulsant, cardioactive agent.
Avoid. Natural Medicines / WebMD note there is not enough information to know whether pink root is safe while breastfeeding and advise avoiding it. Given a toxic alkaloid that may pass into milk and the accompanying strong laxative, the prudent course during lactation is to avoid it.
Use only under qualified supervision, never as a home remedy. Pinkroot was historically the classic children's vermifuge and children were among its principal patients, but it is a narrow-margin poison: overdose or repeated dosing has produced the toxic syndrome (disturbed vision, dilated pupils, facial twitching, cardiac excitation, convulsions) in children, and modern references give no established pediatric dose (Natural Medicines / WebMD: insufficient information to set a dose). Any pediatric use must be practitioner-directed, weight-calculated, single-course, and always followed by a cathartic to prevent absorption; safer modern anthelmintics are the first choice.
Pinkroot is a narrow-margin, potentially poisonous herb whose therapeutic and toxic doses lie close together. Its alkaloid spigeline, likened to coniine and nicotine, is a nerve and heart poison: overdose or accumulation produces increased and disturbed cardiac action, vertigo and dizziness, dimness and disturbance of vision, dilated pupils, twitching of the eyelids and face, muscular spasms, general convulsions, stupor, and in severe poisoning death. Toxicity is more likely when the root is given alone without the customary cathartic, allowing the alkaloid to be absorbed rather than swept out, and when doses are repeated. The fresh root is more acrid and hazardous than the dried. For these reasons pinkroot is a practitioner's remedy, dosed precisely, always followed by a saline or senna cathartic, never taken casually or self-dosed, and kept out of the reach of children except in carefully calculated therapeutic use.
Pregnancy (a toxic alkaloid plus the obligatory strong laxative). Cardiac disease and any tendency to arrhythmia (the alkaloid excites and disturbs the heart). Seizure disorders (it is convulsant in overdose). Concurrent cardiac-glycoside therapy without supervision (see interactions). Inflammatory or ulcerative bowel disease, irritated by the acrid root. Marked debility, wasting, and deficiency, in which neither the toxin nor the purge can be safely borne. Any use of the fresh root. Infancy and frailty except in carefully calculated, supervised dosing.
Pinkroot appears on United Plant Savers' Species-At-Risk list (at-risk score around 35) and is listed as Endangered in Indiana. It is a slow, shade-demanding woodland perennial, easily crowded out by invasive species and historically over-collected for the drug trade. Encouragingly, wild-harvest pressure is easing as the plant's popularity as a nursery-grown, hummingbird-attracting garden perennial rises. Source only nursery-propagated or responsibly cultivated root, never wild-dug from native woodland populations.
Not in the canonical biblical texts nor in the classical Greco-Roman herbals; Spigelia marilandica is a North American native unknown to the ancient Mediterranean world. Its medicinal tradition is Native American, notably Cherokee and Creek/Muscogee use as a wormer, from whom it passed into colonial and Eclectic American medicine. Cited honestly as a herb of Southeastern Native American and American Eclectic tradition rather than of Scripture.
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