page_title: Stellera
section_title: Toxicity
hierarchical_section_title: Stellera / Toxicity
caption_attribution_description: English: The flower is called "Langdu" （狼毒花）, lit. "wolf poison". It is used as a medical herb, in the same time, due to its large roots, it speeds up desertation of prairies. It is widely seen in Western China.
context_page_description: Stellera is a genus of flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae, with a single species Stellera chamaejasme found in mountainous regions of Central Asia, China, Siberia and South Asia. S. chamaejasme is a herbaceous perennial plant with heads of white, pink or yellow flowers, grown as an ornamental plant in rock gardens and alpine houses, but considered a weed playing a rôle in the desertification of grasslands in parts of its native range. Like many others of its family, it is a poisonous plant with medicinal and other useful properties.
context_section_description: The Russians living in Dauria still hold Stellera in high esteem on account of its root, despite the fact that its violent effects have already dispatched a good many people to the afterlife. This root resembles a crudely-carved human figure to a degree even greater than that of the [ famous ] Alraune or Mandragora, such that one can often distinguish clearly in its natural form [protuberances resembling] a head, arms and legs; which has led to its being given the most apposite name of Muzhik koren [Мужик корен] or "Man root" by the Russians. The oldest rootstocks of this plant can reach the size of a large carrot, and [if taken as medicine] produce the most violent effects. Such old roots can produce more than fifty - and sometimes as many as a hundred - flowering shoots, which, crowned with their beautiful and fragrant flowers, give not the least hint of the violent and pernicious effects residing in the root that bore them. The exterior of the flower is usually of a dark reddish-purple, or, more rarely sulphur-yellow colour; while the interior is white. Add to this the fact that the flowers display, upon opening, a white border and in the middle a red or yellow patch, and the flowers present the most ravishing aspect. The young Tungus boys are in the habit of adorning their bare heads with a kind of hat which they create most artistically by interweaving whole flowering stems of the plant. On this plant one often finds a flower in which two normal flowers seem fused into one, bearing a corolla with nine lobes and eighteen stamens arranged in two rows. [ Translated from the French of a text closely based on the account of Prussian naturalist and explorer Peter Simon Pallas ].
  The plant is virulently poisonous and has caused fatalities both in humans and in livestock. The powdered roots have been used as a laxative, as a pesticide and as a fish poison, and have also been used in small doses as a drastic anthelmintic for sheep and goats.
  The plant is common in Western China, where it goes by the common name of Langdu (狼毒花) lit. "wolf poison" (狼 lang "wolf" + 毒 dú "poison" + 花 huā "flower"). It is used as a medicinal herb in China, but can be considered an undesirable element in the flora if it should proliferate to too great an extent, as its large, water-thirsty roots speed up the desertification of prairies.
  A work on native Chinese medicinal plants aimed at farmers states that Stellera is a very poisonous plant used as an insecticide and that, if consumed by an animal, will cause the victim's intestines to disintegrate.
  Corroboration of this evidence for the damaging effect upon the intestines of certain plants belonging to the Thymelaceae may be found in an account of "Lasiosiphon kraussianus Hutch. & Dalz. " (referable, possibly to Lasiosiphon kraussianus (Meisn.) Meisn. or a Gnidia sp.) of South Africa: the plant is exceedingly poisonous and rapidly fatal to stock: the intestines of an animal perforate about a day after eating it. This lethal property is put to use by certain African tribes who use the powdered root of the plant to poison waterholes during the rainy season, the poison remaining potent for seven days and killing any animal which drinks it.
  The plant family to which Stellera belongs - Thymelaceae - is notable for the number of poisonous species which it contains and also for a certain similarity in chemistry to the family Euphorbiaceae, both families having a number of genera producing phorbol esters. It is interesting to note, in this context, that Chinese herbal medicine recognises a similarity in action between Stellera and certain Euphorbia species: Perry (1980) notes that, in a Chinese materia medica of 1959, Stellera, Euphorbia fischeriana Steud. (syn. E. pallasii Turcz.) and Euphorbia sieboldiana Morr. & Decne. are listed under the same heading (no. 86, langdu) - and as possessing the same or very similar medicinal properties: pungent, poisonous plants used as cathartics, anthelmintics, expectorants, also used topically to treat ulcers and skin diseases.
caption: Stellera chamaejasme (in bud) growing in Gansu province, Western China, where it has the common name of Langdu (狼毒花) "wolf poison" - probably because it was formerly employed as such.
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