Gorse
Furze
- Known today as
- Ulex europaeus. A spiny, coconut-scented, yellow-flowered shrub of heath and common land.
- Kind
- Plant, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- cytisine, anagyrine, ulexine
- 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 27, 2026.
Gorse: what was it used for?
Young shoots as fodder in hard winters; the flowers used in folk dyeing and, now and then, in wine.
Gorse: what does modern science say?
No medicinal claims of note; valued chiefly as forage and as a nitrogen-fixing hedge.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- The seeds carry cytisine, the laburnum alkaloid, a partial agonist at nicotinic receptors, which vomits and then paralyses; the same molecule is now a licensed drug for stopping smoking. The flowers are harmless and the shoots were safe fodder.
- Checked against ChEMBL
- cytisine: ChEMBL’s curated mechanism: partial agonist Neuronal acetylcholine receptor; alpha4/beta2.
- Toxic dose
- The seeds in quantity are toxic to stock and children; cytisine the drug is given at 1.5 mg.
- Syndrome
- Nicotinic poisoning (coniine, nicotine, cytisine)
- Standing
- Cytisine, first isolated from gorse and laburnum, has been licensed as a smoking-cessation drug in Eastern Europe since 1964 and was shown non-inferior to varenicline in 2021.
- Walker, N., et al. (2014). “Cytisine versus nicotine for smoking cessation.” New England Journal of Medicine 371. Verified against its record · doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2015.01.023
- Frohne, D., and Pfänder, H. J. (2005). Poisonous Plants, 2nd ed., “Fabaceae.” Book, not indexed
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.
Gorse: what lore surrounds it?
Because some gorse is nearly always in bloom somewhere on the bush, the English country saying held that “when gorse is out of bloom, kissing’s out of fashion”: that is, never.
Gorse: what did the older authorities say?
- Pliny
- Gorse enters the Natural History not as a medicine but as a tool of the Spanish gold-washings. The trenches dug for the water “at regular intervals, have a layer of ulex placed at the bottom. This ulex is a plant like rosemary in appearance, rough and prickly, and well-adapted for arresting any pieces of gold that may be carried along.” Afterwards “the ulex that is used for the above purpose is dried and burnt, after which the ashes of it are washed upon a bed of grassy turf, in order that the gold may be deposited thereupon.”
Sources
- The Natural Navigator, “Gorse is out of bloom.” Book, seen in reviews
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 33.21, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. 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
- The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Sources
- 4 cited: 1 verified against its record, 1 primary text, 1 book, seen in reviews, 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 27, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Gorse.” 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/gorse.
- MLA
“Gorse.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/gorse. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Gorse. (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/gorse
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See Also
Poisoned alike: nicotinic poisoning (coniine, nicotine, cytisine)
Hemlock · Broom · Lesser bean-trefoil · Tobacco · the syndrome, with all of them →
Also in Pliny the Elder
Greater celandine in Pliny the Elder · Gold leaf in Pliny the Elder · Ground ivy in Pliny the Elder · Goji berry in Pliny the Elder · everything Pliny the Elder names →
Drawing on the same sources: Frohne
Nearby in the alphabet
Golden pills (a standard compound of aloes, scammony, and colocynth) · Ground cherry (the ground cherries) · Gold, frankincense, and myrrh (The gifts of the Magi) · Ground pine (yellow bugle, distinct from arthritica (note XLIX))
Historical description, not medical advice.