# Pink rock-rose (Cistus creticus)

*Cretan rock-rose, ladanum cistus; holly rose of Gerard and Parkinson; *Cistus creticus* of Linnaeus; the Greek *kistos* and *ledon* of Dioscorides; in pharmacy *Cisti cretici herba**

**Known today as.** *Cistus creticus*, a shrub of the family Cistaceae, from whose leaves and other parts, Folkard says, is secreted the resin ladanum, prized as a perfume. The herb is the medicine.

Kind: Plant

> **Caution.** Not for anyone under eighteen, for want of data. Breathlessness, fever, or purulent sputum during use call for a doctor.

## What was it used for?

For the cough, by modern standing; in antiquity, an astringent. Dioscorides gives the flowers of his *kistos*, pounded and drunk twice a day in sharp wine, for dysentery, and as a poultice on gangrenous sores and, with a stiff ointment, on burns and old ulcers. Its resin, ladanum, he calls astringent, warming, and softening, mixed with wine, myrrh, and oil of myrtle to stop the hair falling, and rubbed on with wine to make scars look better.

## What does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the herb as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for the relief of cough associated with a cold (monograph of 2025). Its assessment report finds terpenes, labdane-type diterpenes among them, and polyphenols including catechin, gallocatechin, and their dimeric and trimeric derivatives.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **labdane-type diterpenes**: among the terpenes
- **catechin**: with gallocatechin and their dimers and trimers, among the polyphenols
- **gallocatechin**: 
- **ladanum**: a resin secreted by the leaves, by Folkard’s account

**Mechanism.** Not established in the sources read for this entry.

**Standing.** European Union herbal monograph (2025): traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for cough associated with a cold.

## What lore surrounds it?

Folkard records that Cassianus Bassus derived the name from a Greek youth called Kistos, that Gerard and Parkinson called the plants holly roses, “a name which has become changed into Rock Roses,” and that ladanum, prized as a tonic but more as a perfume, was much used in the East for fumigation. In his day it was gathered with a kind of rake hung with leather thongs instead of teeth. Bacon, unlike Gerard, believed the goats: “There are some teares of trees, which are kembed from the beards of goats.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**Dioscorides.** He describes *kistos* as a shrub of rocky places with many low branches and round, rough leaves, and a second kind, *ledon*, with longer, darker leaves that gather a fat in spring. From this, he says, ladanum is made: goats feeding on the leaves carry the sticky fat away on their beards and thighs, and it is combed off, strained, and rolled into balls, or gathered by drawing cords across the shrubs.

**John Gerard, as Folkard reports him.** The story of the goats’ beards Gerard dismissed as a fable of the “Calohieros, that is to say, Greekish monkes, who, of very mockery, have foisted that fable among others extant in their workes.”

## Sources

- Dioscorides. *De materia medica*, 1-126 and 1-128, 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*, “Cistus.” Project Gutenberg, 44638.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Cisti cretici herba (Pink rock-rose)*. EMA/HMPC/150763/2015, 19 March 2025.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Cisti cretici herba*. EMA/HMPC/150765/2015, 19 March 2025.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Cisti cretici herba (Pink rock-rose)*. EMA/HMPC/150763/2015, 19 March 2025.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Cisti cretici herba*. EMA/HMPC/150765/2015, 19 March 2025.

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*Pink rock-rose.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-16. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/pink-rock-rose

Historical description, not medical advice.