Eryngo
Sea holly; Eryngium
- Known today as
- Eryngium maritimum, a spiny blue-grey thistle-like plant of sand dunes, with long sweet roots.
- Kind
- Plant, in 2 older authorities
- Constituents
- saponins, rosmarinic acid, polyacetylenes, and 1 more
- Poisoning
- Saponin irritation
- Earliest authority here
- Pliny (AD 23/24–79)
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: An older authority added from a text read in full. Version 1, first published September 30, 2026.
Eryngo: what was it used for?
The candied root, a restorative and, by reputation, an aphrodisiac; also for the stone and for obstructions.
Eryngo: what does modern science say?
No evidence for its reputation.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- saponinstriterpenoid, in the root
- rosmarinic acid ChEMBL
- polyacetylenesfalcarinol
- coumarins
- Mechanism
- The root is a mild diuretic and the saponins are expectorant; the aphrodisiac reputation of the candied root, Falstaff’s “eringoes,” has no pharmacology behind it.
- Toxic dose
- Safe; the saponins vomit in excess.
- Syndrome
- Saponin irritation
- Standing
- No monograph; the candied root was a Colchester sweetmeat into the nineteenth century.
- Wang, P., et al. (2012). “Phytochemical constituents and pharmacological activities of Eryngium L.” Pharmaceutical Crops 3. Verified against its record · doi:10.2174/2210290601203010099
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
What Medicine Makes of It
- Binding, Ligature, and ImpotenceThe knotted cord, and psychogenic impotence.
Eryngo: what lore surrounds it?
Falstaff, embracing Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor, calls on the sky to “hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes.” Colchester was famous for its candied eryngo roots.
Eryngo: what did the older authorities say?
- Pliny
- “The white variety of the eryngium is known in our language as the ‘centum capita,’” and the Greeks eat “both the stalk and the root as an article of food, either boiled or raw.” Then the marvel: “the root of it, it is said, bears a strong resemblance to the organs of either sex; it is but rarely found, but if a root resembling the male organs should happen to fall in the way of a man, it will ensure him woman's love; hence it is that Phaon the Lesbian was so passionately beloved by Sappho.” Pliny files this among the “reveries” of the Magi and of “Pythagorean philosophers even,” before listing the plant's uses in hydromel for flatulency, gripings and diseases of the heart, stomach and liver; gathered at the summer solstice for maladies of the neck; and “attached as an amulet to the person” as a cure for albugo.
- Culpeper
- “The plant is venereal, and breeds seed exceedingly, and strengthens the spirit procreative”: the root decocted in wine opens the spleen and liver, provokes urine and expels the stone, taken fifteen days for the strangury; bruised and boiled in hog’s grease it draws forth thorns and broken bones; the distilled water “helps the melancholy of the heart.”
Sources
- Shakespeare, W., The Merry Wives of Windsor V.v. Verified against its record · doi:10.1093/oseo/instance.00000009
- Grieve, M. (1931). A Modern Herbal, “Holly, Sea.” Book, not indexed
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 22.9, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. Primary text
- Culpeper, N. (1653). The Complete Herbal, “Eringo, Or Sea-Holly.” Project Gutenberg #49513. Primary text
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Sources
- 5 cited: 2 verified against its record, 2 primary text, 1 book, not indexed.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 30, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Eryngo.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/eryngo.
- MLA
“Eryngo.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/eryngo. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Eryngo. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/eryngo
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See Also
Poisoned alike: saponin irritation
Herb Paris · Cowslip · Sarsaparilla · Solomon’s seal · the syndrome, with all of them →
Sharing saponins, rosmarinic acid, polyacetylenes
Impatiens capensis · Succisa pratensis · Verbascum thapsus · Dipsacus fullonum · Glechoma hederacea · Symphytum officinale · Pulmonaria officinalis · Ocimum basilicum
Also in Pliny the Elder
Fennel in Pliny the Elder · Epithymum in Pliny the Elder · Fern seed in Pliny the Elder · Endive in Pliny the Elder · everything Pliny the Elder names →
Also in Nicholas Culpeper
Feverfew in Nicholas Culpeper · Ground cherry in Nicholas Culpeper · everything Nicholas Culpeper names →
Drawing on the same sources: Shakespeare, Grieve, Culpeper, Wang
Chamomile · Heartsease · Eyebright · Ergot · the bibliography →
Nearby in the alphabet
The exorcists’ manuals (above all those of the Franciscan Girolamo Menghi) · The eye bead (white, light blue, and black, like an eye) · Epsom salt (first boiled from the waters of a spring on Epsom Common in Surrey) · Fairy ring champignon (A small tan mushroom that grows in rings on lawns and pasture) · Epiphany water (in the East as the Great Blessing of the Waters at Theophany)
Historical description, not medical advice.