# Cyclamen, greater (Cyclamen purpurascens)

**Ciclamino*; *pan porcino**

**Known today as.** Sowbread, *Cyclamen purpurascens* or *C. hederifolium*, eaten by pigs, hence the name.

Kind: Plant  
Poisoning: Gastrointestinal irritants (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/gastrointestinal)  
Toxic: yes

> **Caution.** 

## What did Canale use it for?

Its distilled root water taken with the oil for hexes; among the amulets (chs. 9–10).

## What does modern science say?

The tuber is a drastic purgative and poisonous. Pliny warned that a pregnant woman who stepped over the root would miscarry, and said that spells had no effect wherever it grew.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **cyclamin**: a triterpenoid saponin

**Mechanism.** The saponin irritates the gut violently and lyses cells; the old use as a purge and a nose-clearer, and a nasal spray of the extract is sold for sinusitis in Europe.

**Dose.** The tuber has poisoned pigs, whence the name sowbread; a few grams purge.

**Standing.** A cyclamen nasal spray showed modest benefit in a 2012 trial for sinusitis.

## What lore surrounds it?

Folkard gives the Roman names Tuber terræ, Panis Porcinus and Arthanita, and the English Sow-bread, “because, in countries where it is abundant, it forms the chief food of herds of swine.” The plant “was formerly regarded as a most potent assistant by midwives”: Gerarde held that the root “hanged about women” had a salutary effect, and fenced his own cyclamens with sticks “lest any woman should, by lamentable experiment, find my words to be true, by their stepping over the same.” According to Theophrastus it “was employed by the ancients to excite love and voluptuous desires,” and placed in a bedchamber it guarded the sleeper: “St. John's Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in his chamber kept, From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”

Thiselton-Dyer lists cyclamen with the pimpernel and herb-paris as plants that “were formerly gathered” in England against witchcraft, and with cumin as plants “which from the time of Theophrastus have been coveted for their magic virtues.” “The bleeding nun (Cyclamen europoeum) was consecrated to the Virgin,” and among the pig-names of plants “the common cyclamen is sow-head.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**Pliny.** Says the root of cyclaminos “is good for injuries inflicted by serpents of all kinds”: leaves smaller than ivy’s, swarthy and covered with whitish spots, a thin hollow stem, purple flowers, and a root “large and covered with a black rind,” almost to be taken for rape, growing in shady places; the cabbage withers if planted near it; and it is an antidote to the sea-hare.

## Sources

- Pliny the Elder, *Natural History* 25.67, 24.1, 25.77, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library.
- Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “Cyclamen.” Project Gutenberg #44638.
- Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (1889). *The Folk-lore of Plants*. Project Gutenberg #10118.
- Pfaar, O., et al. (2012). “Cyclamen europaeum nasal spray, a novel phytotherapeutic product for the management of acute rhinosinusitis.” *Rhinology* 50.

---

*Cyclamen, greater.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cyclamen-greater

Historical description, not medical advice.