# Gentian (Gentiana lutea) *Yellow gentian, great yellow gentian, bitterwort; *Gentiana lutea* of Linnaeus; the Greek *gentiane* of Dioscorides; in pharmacy *Gentianae radix** **Known today as.** *Gentiana lutea*, a stately perennial of the alpine and subalpine pastures of central and southern Europe, from Spain and the Pyrenees through the Alps to the Balkans, absent from northern Europe and the British Isles. Its stem rises three or four feet with paired, stiff, five-veined leaves, and big orange-yellow clusters of wheel-shaped flowers in the upper pairs; its root, “generally about a foot long and an inch in diameter, but sometimes even a yard or more long,” is yellowish brown and very bitter. Grieve warns that cattle leave it untouched and that its leaves are easily confused with those of white hellebore, its frequent companion. The dried root is the medicine. Kind: Plant > **Caution.** Not for anyone under eighteen, for want of data. Culpeper would not have it given to women with child; the European monograph finds its safety in pregnancy and breast-feeding not established and does not recommend it then. Grieve records that the powdered root of commerce was sometimes adulterated, and that belladonna and aconite roots had been found mixed with the genuine root. ## What was it used for? The great bitter. “Gentian is one of the most useful of our bitter vegetable tonics,” Grieve wrote, “specially useful in states of exhaustion from chronic disease” and in weakness of the digestion and want of appetite; she held that many dyspeptic complaints were “more effectually relieved by Gentian bitters than by Peruvian Bark,” and gave it with a purgative to prevent the purgative’s weakening effect. It was steeped with orange peel and cardamom in brandy, made into Stockton bitters with sweet flag, used in brewing before hops, and in Germany and Switzerland distilled into a spirit. ## What does modern science say? The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the root as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for temporary loss of appetite and for mild dyspeptic or gastrointestinal disorders (monograph of 2018). Its assessment report puts the bitter constituents at 2 to 8 per cent, mostly in the bark of the root: the secoiridoid gentiopicroside and a smaller amount of amarogentin, whose bitterness value of 58 million the report calls “the most bitter substance known.” A 2023 review of the yellow gentian gathers laboratory, animal, and human studies, and calls its findings “promising.” ## Pharmacognosy and toxicology - **gentiopicroside**: a secoiridoid, most of the bitter constituents, which make up 2 to 8 per cent - **amarogentin**: with a bitterness value of 58 million, “the most bitter substance known” **Mechanism.** Not established in the sources read for this entry. **Standing.** European Union herbal monograph (2018): traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for temporary loss of appetite and mild dyspeptic or gastrointestinal disorders. ## What lore surrounds it? The genus, Grieve and Folkard both say, is named for Gentius, king of Illyria in the second century before Christ, who by Pliny’s and Dioscorides’ account discovered its virtues; Folkard adds that the Romans, after Gentius imprisoned their ambassadors, conquered his kingdom and led “the royal botanist and his family in triumph through the streets of Rome.” Of another gentian, *Gentiana cruciata*, Folkard tells that when plague ravaged Hungary King Ladislas prayed that an arrow shot into the air would fall on a cure, and it cleft the root of the gentian. Gerard grew the yellow gentian in his garden on Holborn Hill from plants a French physician sent him from Burgundy, and in the eighteenth century, Grieve says, gentian wine was drunk before dinner. ## What did the older authorities say? **Dioscorides.** He says the plant seems first to have been found by Gentius, king of the Illyrians, who gave it his name, and describes its root-leaves like walnut or plantain, reddish, and a hollow, smooth stalk the thickness of a finger and two feet high. **Nicholas Culpeper.** Writing of the two English felworts, and of the gentian “most used amongst us” that was “brought over from beyond sea,” he holds the native ones no worse in virtue. They are “under the dominion of Mars,” resist poison and the pestilence, strengthen the stomach, and “restores an appetite for their meat to such as have lost it”; steeped in wine they refresh “such as be over-weary with traveling,” but provoke the terms, “therefore let it not be given to women with child.” ## Sources - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Gentians.” As published on botanical.com. - Culpeper, N. *The Complete Herbal*, “Gentian, Felwort, or Baldmony.” Project Gutenberg, 49513. - Dioscorides. *De materia medica*, 3-3, in the modern English version of T. A. Osbaldeston and R. P. A. Wood (Johannesburg: Ibidis, 2000), after Goodyer’s translation of 1655. Internet Archive. - Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “Gentian.” Project Gutenberg, 44638. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Gentianae radix (Gentian Root)*. EMA/HMPC/607861/2017, 20 November 2018. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Gentianae radix*. EMA/HMPC/607863/2017, 20 November 2018. - Ponticelli M, et al. (2023). The healing bitterness of Gentiana lutea L., phytochemistry and biological activities: A systematic review. *Phytochemistry*. PMID 36423749. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Gentianae radix (Gentian Root)*. EMA/HMPC/607861/2017, 20 November 2018. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Gentianae radix*. EMA/HMPC/607863/2017, 20 November 2018. --- *Gentian.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-16. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/gentian Historical description, not medical advice.