Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus)

[PsilocybeChild]

belongs to the poppy family

contains a range of isoquinoline alkaloids but there are numerous therapeutic uses when used at the correct dosage.[7] The main alkaloid present in the herb and root is coptisine. Other alkaloids present include methyl 2'-(7,8-dihydrosanguinarine-8-yl)acetate, allocryptopine,[8] stylopine, protopine, norchelidonine, berberine, chelidonine, sanguinarine, chelerythrine,[9] and 8-hydroxydihydrosanguinarine.[10] Sanguinarine is particularly toxic with an LD50 of 18 mg per kg body weight (IP in rats).[11] Caffeic acid derivatives, such as caffeoylmalic acid, are also present.[12]

Coptisine

has also been detected in Opium

Protopine is a benzylisoquinoline alkaloid occurring in opium poppy

Chelidonine is an isolate of Papaveraceae

(Poppy genus)

Sanguinarine

It is extracted from some plants, including bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Mexican prickly poppy Argemone mexicana,[1] Chelidonium majus and Macleaya cordata.

The alkaloids are known to cause immobilization in mice after being ingested orally or injected.

The root has been chewed to relieve toothache.

C. majus has shown analgesic activity at 200 mg/kg dose in mice.

Chelidonium - Wikipedia

That converts to 13.6 g of herb to 150 lb person.

 

[kerelsk]

Thanks for calling attention to celandine, PsiChild. I've been looking at these all over the place lately.

They are definitely some kind of medicine, but it doesn't seem like there's much reports of what it does internally. I've heard the words sedative and analgesic used. External use on warts seems promising. According to one source it's a tonic to the gallbladder and upper digestive track.

The presence of potentially lethal alkaloids is worrying, and as of yet has kept me from tasting much of it.
I'd appreciate if someone who has taken this plant could say something about it. I haven't met anyone who has yet.

 

[PsilocybeChild]

[youtube]

Anyone speak russian?

 

[PsilocybeChild]

Anyone have a copy of Shulgin's book The Simple Plant Isoquinolines?

 

[PsilocybeChild]

This plant seems much stronger than the Bleeding Heart I previously experimented with.

The leaves are more bitter and I noticed a head-space change after just one or two small leaves.
I was reading on websites that the plant has been used to treat the gallbladder and liver.
While overdose doses of the plant or when mixed with hepatoxic compounds, can be toxic to the liver.

Consistent with the Doctrine of Signatures, the yellow sap obtained from Chelidonium majus denoted that it was useful for treating liver disorders, for instance jaundice.

The website kerelsk posted claimed it to be good for the eyes. Which makes sense if it is good for the liver, eastern medicine claims positive states or influence of the liver to be beneficial to the eyes, as they are on the same energy meridian.

This was the first effect I noticed, my eyes sharpened up quite a bit, and in quite a different way than most psychoactive drugs like psychedelics cause, but it's hard to explain just how.

One website claimed that the best time to harvest is in the spring when it is in bloom, which is now. That may be why I feel a change in headspace after one or two leaves.

I have now lost count, but have eaten around 6 leaves.

Mental effects at this dosage seem to be lightly analgesic and sedative, anti-anxiety tranquility to the mind; possibly some mental fog. Hard to pinpoint, as effects are threshold at this level.
When I first noticed the change in visual perception, I thought I noticed a wavy flowing to the text on the screen, but am not seeing that now. Another subtle effect was a few moments of a trippy sensation of an outward expanding of sort-of mental perception of my place within my body.

Some sites report the yellow latex blood of the plant that you see when you rip it, moreso in the stems, to be acrid and irritant. I got some on my hands and it has not irritated them at all, nor my mouth. Though it tastes hot and there is maybe a slight numbing of the mouth; definitely an effect on it.

I also noticed a slight slowing of heart rate and an energetic feeling there, nothing to alarm me, but it did cause an awareness. I then read

celandine also contains the alkaloid sparteine that facilitates in restoring the regular pace to weak arrhythmic myocardial.

For months I have been feeling some arrhythmia, tension, and sensations of weakness in the heart and have started taking hawthorn berry for it. I believe this initiated with bad drug combinations involving nitrates and possibly use of anabolic compounds. So lots of drugs make me extra aware of my heart-rhythm.


Sorry for such a long post. Anyone experimenting may want to first sample a small amount to test for irritant reactions of the latex contained in the plant. I have not heard of it happening, but wouldn't want anyone's mouth or throat to swell from an allergic reaction.

And after a test dose perhaps, smoking dried plant material may be good recreationally.
I am drying some now to test that purpose.

Also of note:

Coptisine has been found to reversibly inhibit Monoamine oxidase A in mice, pointing to a potential role as a natural antidepressant.

 

[kerelsk]

Thank you for your bioassay research, PsiChild, this is helping me understand the plant better.
I'll try to request some foliage from the locals, dry it out, save it for a later date when I'm less busy.

 

[PsilocybeChild]

I think it will probably turn out that the painkilling isoquinoline alkaloids in it probably will not cause much euphoria like morphine and codeine.

Though if you have a useful analgesic painkiller on your backyard, it would be useful to know about it.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Glad to find this thread as I'm moving somewhere where this plant is abundant.

Anyone have a copy of Shulgin's book The Simple Plant Isoquinolines?

Yes, what did you want to know? The book is largely a reference index and no Pihkal/Tihkal part 2 for isoquinolines. Great for tracking down the names of plants of potential interest, though.

Several of the Chelidonium majus alkaloids are not included in TSPIQ because they fall outside Shulgin's definition of simple isoquinolines, unfortunately. Namely chelidonine, chelerythrine and sanguinarine.

 

[frozenthunderbolt]

Looking at the drugs.com info for bloodroot (which contains significant sanguinarine and chelerythrine also), it may have useful antimicrobial effects.

Sanguinarine (as a bloodroot paste) has caused tissue death and scarring in some people, and is implicated in causing the pre-cursors to oral cancer (in people who use a sanguinarine containing toothpaste).

Sanguinarine is shown to be cyto-toxic and induce apoptosis.

Toxicology was lowest (highest LD 50 in mice) via oral ingestion.

Sanguinarine has been shown to increase cytokine production in human cells (but human clinical trials have not been done that I can see) so may have some benefit to the immune system so long as it is not in treatment for something like bird-flu that induces a cytokine storm.

While this information comes from Bloodroot, not Greater Celandine, it is my impression that Sanguinarine is the key alkaloid to be wary of.

Tentatively if you intend to experiment with this, use low, infrequent dose of eaten leaf material. If Celandine follow the same pattern as bloodroot, the root will contain much higher alkaloid concentrations, and thus be more dangerous.