# Rupturewort (Herniaria glabra)

*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

> **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.

## 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.

## 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 and toxicology

- **triterpene saponins**: 3 to 9 per cent, derivatives of medicagenic acid
- **herniarin**: among the coumarins, 0.1 to 0.4 per cent
- **flavonoids**: small 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.

## 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.

## 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.
- Culpeper, N. *The Complete Herbal*, “Rupture-Wort.” Project Gutenberg, 49513.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Herniariae herba (Rupturewort)*. EMA/HMPC/554043/2018, 8 July 2020.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Herniariae herba*. EMA/HMPC/554033/2018, 8 July 2020.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Herniariae herba (Rupturewort)*. EMA/HMPC/554043/2018, 8 July 2020.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Herniariae herba*. EMA/HMPC/554033/2018, 8 July 2020.
- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Rupturewort.” As published on botanical.com.

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

Historical description, not medical advice.