Rupturewort
Smooth rupturewort; Herniaria glabra of Linnaeus, with the hairy rupturewort, Herniaria hirsuta; in pharmacy Herniariae herba
- Known today as
- Herniaria glabra, a small plant of the family Caryophyllaceae that Culpeper saw spreading “very many thready branches round about upon the ground, about a span long,” jointed, with tiny paired leaves and “exceedingly small yellowish flowers, scarce to be discerned from the stalks and leaves.” It grows in dry, sandy, and rocky places through temperate and southern Europe and into Asia, and is native to southern and central England. Grieve found it odourless and insipid.
- Kind
- Plant, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- triterpene saponins, herniarin, flavonoids
- Earliest authority here
- Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654)
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online · GBIF · Wikidata
Caution. Not for anyone under eighteen, for want of data, nor where a reduced fluid intake is recommended, as in severe heart or kidney disease. Plenty of fluid should be drunk with it; fever, painful urination, spasms, or blood in the urine call for a doctor.
Rupturewort: what was it used for?
Its name is its old claim: a cure for rupture. Culpeper says it “is found by experience to cure the rupture, not only in children but also in elder persons, if the disease be not too inveterate,” a dram of the powdered herb daily in wine, and that it helps the stranguary and the stone. By Grieve’s day its use had become the urine: active diuretic properties were attributed to its principle herniarine, “found successful in the treatment of dropsy, whether of cardiac or nephritic origin,” and it was recommended for catarrh of the bladder.
Rupturewort: 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,” to increase the amount of urine and so flush the urinary tract, as an adjuvant in minor urinary complaints (monograph of 2020). Its assessment report finds 3 to 9 per cent triterpene saponins, derivatives of medicagenic acid, small amounts of flavonoids, and 0.1 to 0.4 per cent coumarins, among them the herniarin Grieve named. The agency’s monograph makes no claim for it in hernia.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- triterpene saponins3 to 9 per cent, derivatives of medicagenic acid
- herniarinamong the coumarins, 0.1 to 0.4 per cent
- flavonoidssmall amounts
- Mechanism
- Not established in the sources read for this entry.
- Standing
- European Union herbal monograph (2020): traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” to flush the urinary tract in minor urinary complaints.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. European Union herbal monograph on Herniariae herba (Rupturewort). EMA/HMPC/554043/2018, 8 July 2020. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Herniariae herba. EMA/HMPC/554033/2018, 8 July 2020. Read in part · the text read
- Grieve, M. A Modern Herbal, “Rupturewort.” As published on botanical.com. Read in full · the text read
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.
Rupturewort: what lore surrounds it?
A plant named for what it was supposed to mend, and Culpeper defends the name: “Rupture-wort hath not its name in vain.” Grieve records that the genus once stood in a family of its own, the Illecebraceae, and that the hairy species, common on the Continent, had been found near Christchurch in Hampshire.
Rupturewort: what did the older authorities say?
- Nicholas Culpeper
- “They say Saturn causes ruptures; if he do, he does no more than he can cure.” The herb is “Saturn’s own,” and besides the rupture it was to help fluxes, vomiting, stitches in the side, obstructions of the liver, and the yellow jaundice, to kill worms in children, and, laid on green and bruised, to close wounds.
Sources
- Grieve, M. A Modern Herbal, “Rupturewort.” As published on botanical.com. Read in full · the text read
- Culpeper, N. The Complete Herbal, “Rupture-Wort.” Project Gutenberg, 49513. Read in part · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. European Union herbal monograph on Herniariae herba (Rupturewort). EMA/HMPC/554043/2018, 8 July 2020. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Herniariae herba. EMA/HMPC/554033/2018, 8 July 2020. Read in part · the text read
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
- Sources
- 4 cited: 2 read in full, 2 read in part.
- 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.
Club members can point at a technical term in this entry, such as a constituent, an action, or a word of Jung’s, to read its definition from the source. The Club.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published October 16, 2026
- Chicago
“Rupturewort.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 16, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/rupturewort.
- MLA
“Rupturewort.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 16 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/rupturewort. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Rupturewort. (2026, October 16). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/rupturewort
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See Also
Sharing triterpene saponins, flavonoids
Solidago virgaurea · Calendula officinalis · Aesculus hippocastanum · Serenoa repens · Buphthalmum salicifolium · Capsella bursa-pastoris · Botrychium lunaria
Also in Nicholas Culpeper
Self-heal in Nicholas Culpeper · Rosemary rice water in Nicholas Culpeper · Roman chamomile in Nicholas Culpeper · everything Nicholas Culpeper names →
Drawing on the same sources: Grieve, Culpeper
Sage · Rue · Sandalwood · the bibliography →
Nearby in the alphabet
Saffron (The stigmas of Crocus sativus) · Saffron milk cap (orange-tinged mushroom of conifer woods whose orange milk turns green) · Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) · Round birthwort (Aristolochia rotunda) · Sal ammoniac (from volcanic vents and later made from soot and urine)
Historical description, not medical advice.
