Tribulus
Sanskrit gokshura, cow’s hoof, and kshugandha; Arabic and Persian khasak or hasak; the Greek tribolos of Dioscorides and the tribulus of Pliny; Tribulus terrestris of Linnaeus
- Known today as
- Tribulus terrestris, a plant of the family Zygophyllaceae whose four or five delicate, hairy stalks spread flat on the ground up to two and a half feet, with pinnate leaves of five or six pairs of nearly round leaflets and small yellow five-petalled flowers, from a slender, light-brown, faintly aromatic root. Its fruit is made up of cocci.
- Kind
- Plant, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- protodioscin, furostanol saponins
- Earliest authority here
- Dymock, Warden, and Hooper, Pharmacographia Indica
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online · GBIF · Wikidata
Caution. LiverTox finds that tribulus extracts “have not been linked convincingly to instances of clinically apparent liver injury when given in typical doses in humans,” though isolated reports of kidney injury exist. The plant itself, it notes, is toxic to grazing animals and causes a distinctive liver injury in sheep, known as ‘geeldikkop.’ No European monograph sets out its safety.
Tribulus: what was it used for?
A cooling diuretic and a tonic in Indian medicine. Dymock, Warden, and Hooper wrote that the Hindus used the fruit and root, regarding them as cooling, diuretic, tonic, and aphrodisiac, for gonorrhoea and painful urination, and that the root was one of the ten drugs of the dasamula kvatha, a compound decoction often named in Sanskrit works. Its action on the urinary passages, they judged, closely resembled that of buchu and uva ursi.
Tribulus: what does modern science say?
The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee adopted no monograph for the herb. The only preparation on the European market, a methanol extract standardised to furostanol saponins and approved in Bulgaria since 1981, it judged “specific and therefore not appropriate” to support a traditional-use monograph, and found that “data supporting an acceptable level of safety and a recognized efficacy are not available as published data” (public statement of 2024). Its assessment report names steroidal saponins, protodioscin among them, as the constituents of interest. The trials of its modern use, for male sexual function, disagree: a 2026 meta-analysis found erectile function scores improved over placebo, while a 2025 review judged the evidence for erectile function low and found “no robust evidence” that it raises testosterone.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- protodioscinamong the steroidal saponins, the constituents of interest
- furostanol saponinsto which the one marketed extract is standardised
- Mechanism
- Not established in the sources read for this entry.
- Standing
- There is no European monograph: the European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee adopted none (public statement of 2024). Meta-analyses (2025, 2026) disagree on erectile function; no robust evidence that it raises testosterone.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Public statement on Tribuli terrestris herba (Tribulus herb). EMA/HMPC/308436/2023, 20 November 2024. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Tribuli terrestris herba. EMA/HMPC/886105/2022, 20 November 2024. Read in part · the text read
- Suharyani S, et al. (2026). Tribulus terrestris for management of patients with erectile dysfunction: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. International journal of impotence research. PMID 40360723. Abstract read · the text read
- Vilar Neto JO, et al. (2025). Effects of Tribulus (<i>Tribulus terrestris</i> L.) Supplementation on Erectile Dysfunction and Testosterone Levels in Men-A Systematic Review of Clinical Trials. Nutrients. PMID 40219032. Abstract read · the text read
- LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury, “Tribulus.” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, updated 2022. NCBI Bookshelf. Read in full · the text read
The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.
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.
Tribulus: what lore surrounds it?
In the dasamula of the Sanskrit books, ten roots boiled together, tribulus stands among the five minor plants, alongside desmodium and two species of Solanum; Loureiro, Dymock adds, thought it astringent, and in one Indian district its flowers rubbed with silver were applied to inflammation of the cornea.
Tribulus: what did the older authorities say?
- Dymock, Warden, and Hooper, Pharmacographia Indica
- The Sanskrit gokshura, they explain, means “cow’s hoof,” from the likeness of the fruit’s cocci, when they hold together in pairs, to a cloven hoof, and kshugandha alludes to the plant’s scent. They quote Ainslie that it grows commonly near the Dardanelles and that “Dioscorides calls it” tribolos and Pliny tribulus, both describing a land kind and a water kind, the latter the water chestnut.
Sources
- Dymock, W., Warden, C. J. H., & Hooper, D. (1890). Pharmacographia Indica, vol. 1, “Tribulus terrestris.” Internet Archive, b2129737x_0001. Read in part · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Public statement on Tribuli terrestris herba (Tribulus herb). EMA/HMPC/308436/2023, 20 November 2024. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Tribuli terrestris herba. EMA/HMPC/886105/2022, 20 November 2024. Read in part · the text read
- Suharyani S, et al. (2026). Tribulus terrestris for management of patients with erectile dysfunction: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. International journal of impotence research. PMID 40360723. Abstract read · the text read
- Vilar Neto JO, et al. (2025). Effects of Tribulus (<i>Tribulus terrestris</i> L.) Supplementation on Erectile Dysfunction and Testosterone Levels in Men-A Systematic Review of Clinical Trials. Nutrients. PMID 40219032. Abstract read · the text read
- LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury, “Tribulus.” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, updated 2022. NCBI Bookshelf. Read in full · 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
- 6 cited: 2 read in full, 2 read in part, 2 abstract read. 2 with the abstract on file.
- 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
“Tribulus.” 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/tribulus.
- MLA
“Tribulus.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 16 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/tribulus. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Tribulus. (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/tribulus
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See Also
Drawing on the same sources: Dymock
Andrographis · Picrorhiza · Ashwagandha · the bibliography →
Nearby in the alphabet
Troche of agaric (Laricifomes officinalis (syn) · Touch-pieces · Truffle (Underground edible fungi that live in symbiosis with plant roots) · Tormentil · Turkey tail (found worldwide, banded in concentric rings of brown and tan) · Tongue stones (called tongue-stones, and by the Germans adders’ tongues) · Turmeric (of the ginger family, whose root is deep yellow within) · Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum)
Historical description, not medical advice.
