Buttercup blistering
Protoanemonin, released from ranunculin when the fresh tissue of any buttercup is crushed: pilewort, hepatica, anemone, pasque flower, clematis, the meadow buttercups.
Buttercup blistering: how soon does it show?
Minutes to hours on the skin and mouth.
How does it run?
Burning, redness, and blisters where the fresh plant touched; in the mouth and gut, salivation, vomiting, colic, and bloody diarrhoea, with kidney irritation if much is swallowed. Beggars raised sores with it to move pity. Drying polymerises the lactone to inert anemonin, which is why hay with buttercups is safe and the dried herbs of the pharmacopoeia were not blistering.
What is done for it?
Wash; demulcents; it is self-limiting.
Historical and descriptive, not medical advice. In a poisoning, call a poison centre or emergency services.
Which substances in the database cause it?
PlantLiverwort, or hepaticaLiverleaf; Hepatica, from Greek hēpar, “liver”
Hepatica nobilis (syn. Anemone hepatica). An early-spring woodland flower with three-lobed, liver-shaped evergreen leaves.
PlantPilewortLesser celandine; Ficaria
Ficaria verna (Ranunculus ficaria), of the buttercup family, whose glossy yellow stars open in early spring above knobbed roots.Caution
Sources
- Frohne, D., and Pfänder, H. J. (2005). Poisonous Plants, 2nd ed., “Ranunculaceae.” Book, not indexed
- Bonora, A., et al. (1985). “Separation and quantitation of protoanemonin in Ranunculaceae by normal- and reversed-phase HPLC.” Planta Medica 51.