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Unsung Botanical Heros

Unsung Botanical Heros


Common Snowdrop: Galanthus Nivalis


What a wonderful display the snowdrops have put on for us this year! And this year I have started making Snowdrop tea. Surprised? Me too….


As a Medical Herbalist, and leader of local Wild Herb Discovery Walks, I have been researching Snowdrop medicine for a while now. At last, I find a scientific review correlating all the research on snowdrop medicine the scientist authors could find to date. This is exciting for me, it didn’t exist last time I researched snowdrops a few years ago!


Snowdrops grow wild in England, but they originally came from Europe and Asia Minor. They are classed as critically endangered, so please don’t collect or dig up any from the wild. They grow so well in gardens that you really don't need to wild collect anyway.


Science is well and good, and shapes most of my professional work with patients. As a practicing Medical Herbalist, who gathers wild herbs locally, and makes a lot of my own medicines, I also like to get a feel for a plant’s nature, its growth patterns & needs, its smell, touch, taste… To me this makes up the personality of a much esteemed plant colleague, without whom I would not be able to help my patients or do my job. In Medical Herbalism, it’s the plants who hold the power and potential to help and transform, I am their interpreter.


Snowdrops have an unusual ability to generate heat in their bulbs, to help push through frozen ground, ice or snow, as soon as the days start to lengthen and the Sun’s strength returns. They are sociable little flowers, forming clumps of pretty, delicate, nodding white flowers. They can spread by seed, or by offshoots from the bulbs, creating colonies in rich damp soil and partial shade, often at the edge of woodlands.


To touch, they are cool, smooth, and an interesting combination of delicate and tough. To taste, they are a bit like Golden Saxifrage or Wall Pennycress. A salad/lettuce-like taste, with extra dimensions and bitterness.


If eaten in quantity, Snowdrops can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, especially the bulbs, so not recommended! That said, I have not yet found any evidence of fatality or lasting damage to humans after ingestion. But why would we want to eat snowdrops or make tea out of them?


In old English Herbals, there is reference to snowdrops helping strengthen the heart, regenerate frostbitten tissue, regulate menstrual cycles, and even inducing abortion. This wasn't in my training, and I have never yet used snowdrops in my practice.


Snowdrop seems to be more popular as a remedy in countries where it is native. In Bulgaria, rubbing snowdrop leaves and bulbs to the forehead was held to relieve headache and migraine.

In the Caucasian mountains, snowdrop root decoction was given to children with poliomyelitis, to aid full recovery with no lasting disability. This decoction was also given to elderly people whose memory was fading.


Based on these observations scientists took snowdrops into the laboratory and isolated galanthamine, one of the alkaloid chemicals present, in the late 1940s. They then researched it on various neuropathic, neuromuscular and psychiatric disorders such as bipolar, schizophrenia and autism. This research did not lead to FDA approval or patent of any drugs in our country until Galantamine in the 1990s.


Galantamine is used today in orthodox medicine as a medicine for early stage Alzheimer's Disease in this country. It can be synthesised in the laboratory, but it is also extracted from daffodils grown in the Black Mountains in Wales.


What does galanthamine do to help Alzheimer's  you may ask? Alzheimer's is characterised by low acetylcholine (ACh) levels. ACh is a neurotransmitter. Low ACh levels cause difficulty with nerve impulse transmission between neurons, and to muscles. Galantamine helps in two ways. Firstly, it temporarily blocks an enzyme called ACh esterase, which normally breaks ACh down after a nerve impulse. This results in a buildup of ACh and higher levels. Secondly, galanthamine can bind to nicotinic ACh receptors, thereby triggering an impulse its self.


Galanthamine has potential to help any conditions with low ACh levels, including Myasthenia Gravis, and nerve gas poisoning.


The discovery of galanthamine led scientist to research further into Snowdrop’s rich treasury of chemicals.


They discovered antimicrobial, antifungal, antiprotozoal, antioxidant & anti-inflammatory actions, especially in the rich phenolic acid constituents of the aerial parts. The bulb alkaloid lycorine showed anti-cancer potential. Mannose-binding lectins in the bulbs proved anti-viral, preventing SARS-CoV  (COVID) entering host cells and blocking its reproduction and transmission.


Isolated Galantamine has a long list of unpleasant side-effects, and is not expected to reverse the overall degenerative pattern of Alzheimer's Disease. The above mentioned scientific review also indicated potential, that the combination of alkaloids and other chemicals present in a whole plant snowdrop extract, may work synergistically together as medicine, improving efficacy and reducing side-effects. This is in fact usually the case with herb derived medicines. Medical Herbalists like me try to use whole plant extracts wherever possible, usually with good efficacy and no unpleasant side-effects.


So, if it could be so good, where can you get whole plant snowdrop medicine? The only supplier  my online search came up with was a druid website I am not familiar with, in Australia, selling concentrated snowdrop powder for lucid dreaming.


I may quietly and very carefully experiment on myself with snowdrops from my garden. I have enjoyed tea and tincture I made from the aerial parts. It made me feel warm-hearted, supported connected & mentally alert, with a slightly wakeful night and very lucid dreams. I could feel potential for nausea, but very mild, and not a problem at the tiny dose I took.


While I am happy to share my very limited experience with snowdrop medicine, I don't feel I have enough knowledge or experience to recommend this to others. Please feel free to do your own research and make your own decisions.


I do not ever experiment on my patients. To prescribe Sowdrops in practice, I would need good quality evidence as to safety and dosage protocols for whole plant snowdrop extracts, or skilled clinical guidance from a trusted colleague very experienced in working with snowdrop medicine. Sadly, at present I have neither, so I will not be introducing Snowdrop medicine into my practice yet.


Brave little, cheerful little, warm-at-heart Snowdrops. Sociable, delicate yet determined, reversing the closing in of confusing darkness. Returning light, lucidity, interconnectedness and understanding. Ending the winter of the soul for another cycle, pushing upward and outward toward a light, bright, hope-filled spring.


As a parting thought, a bit of Greek mythology. We put a lot of faith in modern science these days, but a lot of herbal knowledge has been around much longer. In Homer’s Odyssey, Hermes gives Odysseus snowdrop medicine (‘moly’), to antidote Sorceress Circe’s anticholinergic herbal potion, and protect him from confusion and delirium. The same chemistry as scientists have discovered centuries later!










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