Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Stillingia sylvatica
Also known as Queen's Delight
Pronounced Stillingia: stil-IN-jee-uh. Stillingia sylvatica: stil-IN-jee-uh sil-VAT-ih-kuh. Queen's Delight.
Warm, dry, acrid stimulating alterative that whips the sluggish lymphatic and depurative fires of a cold, boggy, scrofulous terrain.
No pre-1900 source found for this reading.
Contraindicated. Avoid. The dried root is rated possibly unsafe and the fresh root likely unsafe in pregnancy; the acrid diterpene-ester resin is a powerful mucous-membrane and GI irritant and purgative with potential for reflex uterine irritation. (WebMD/RxList; Drugs.com professional monograph.)
Contraindicated. Avoid. Fresh and dried root are rated likely unsafe during breastfeeding; irritant diterpene esters with no lactation safety data. (WebMD/RxList.)
Not recommended for self-use. Although 19th-century compound cough syrups included small doses, the irritant, emeto-cathartic diterpene esters and the absence of modern pediatric safety data make it unsuitable for children except under expert professional supervision. (WebMD; Memorial Sloan Kettering.)
An acrid, irritant root. Large doses produce vertigo, a burning sensation of the mouth and stomach, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscular aching, cough, prostration, and sweating. The fresh root and its expressed oil are strongly emeto-cathartic and too acrid for internal use unless combined with a mucilage. The juice of the green root blisters and inflames the skin. The root's tigliane and daphnane diterpene esters (Stillingia factors S1 to S8) are protein-kinase-C activators with co-carcinogenic, tumor-promoting potential, so avoid prolonged or high-dose use. Use only small doses of recently dried, well-preserved root; the drug loses much of its virtue with age.
Pregnancy and lactation. Acute gastroenteritis or any inflamed, irritable GI state. Acute inflammatory or frankly hot, dry conditions. Known Euphorbiaceae sensitivity. Avoid prolonged internal use because of the co-carcinogenic diterpene esters.
Stillingia is gathered almost entirely from the wild, the root dug in autumn from southeastern pine-barren soils. It is not currently on the United Plant Savers At-Risk or To-Watch lists, but as a slow-establishing, exclusively wild-collected native it merits caution: prefer verified-sustainable or cultivated sources and avoid casual over-harvest.
Not found in Scripture or the classical Mediterranean herbals (Dioscorides, Pliny). A New-World plant of the southeastern United States pine barrens that entered the materia medica through 19th-century Eclectic and Physiomedical practice (King's American Dispensatory, 1898; Ellingwood, 1919).
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