| WINTER CHERRY  alkekengi officinale physalis alkekengi Chinese lanterns PLANET: Mercury Magickal AKAs Coqueret Judenkirsche Schlutte Cape Gooseberry Strawberry Tomato USAGE Eight berries from the winter cherry are taken to coincide with each of the lunar cycles, and are said to work with the Moon's quarters. This lore suggests that winter cherry is a useful herb for working a magickal healing. Constituents Physalin, a yellowish, bitter principle, has been isolated by extracting an infusion of the plant with chloroform. ACTIONS Aperient Diuretic Febrifuge Lithal is sold as an extract of the berries to which lithium salt has been added. Fruit contains citric acid. Medicinal Action and Uses Berries are aperient and diuretic, are employed in gravel, suppression of urine, etc., and are highly recommended in fevers and in gout. Grieve cites this as a cure for gout using this practice. Ray stated that a gouty patient had prevented returns of the disorder by taking eight berries at each change of the moon. Dioscorides claimed that they would cure epilepsy. The country people often use them both for their beasts and for themselves, and especially for the after-effects of scarlet fever. Leaves and stems are used for the malaise that follows malaria, and for weak or anaemic persons they are slightly tonic. A strong dose causes heaviness and constipation, but sometimes they have cured colic followed by diarrhoea. While not so prompt in its action as sulphate of quinine, the powder is a valuable febrifuge. Leaves, boiled in water, are good for soothing poultices and fomentations. Dosage From 6 to 12 berries, or 1/2 an ounce of the expressed juice. |
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Habitat Europe. China and Cochin-China. An escapee in the United States. Description The name of Physalis is derived from the Greek phusa (a bladder), for the five-cleft calyx greatly increases in size after the corolla falls off, thus enclosing the fruit in a large, leafy bladder. The plant bears smooth, dark-green leaves and yellowish-white flowers. Fruit is a round, red berry, about the size of a cherry, containing numerous flat seeds, kidney-shaped. It will grow freely in any garden, but sufficient is found growing wild for medicinal purposes. Leaves and capsules are the most bitter parts of the plant. The epicarp and calyx include a yellow coloring matter which has been used for butter. Berries are very juicy, with a rather acrid and bitter flavor. In Germany, Spain and Switzerland they are eaten freely, as are other edible fruits. By drying they shrink, and fade to a brownish-red. ******** OTHER SPECIES Ground Cherry Yellow Henbane physalis viscosa can be used in a similar manner. ******** physalis somnifera Narcotic Leaves are used in India, steeped in warm castor oil, as an application to carbuncles and other inflammatory swellings. Seeds are used to coagulate milk. Kunth states that the leaves have been found with Egyptian mummies. ******** The plant sold in pots as Winter Cherry is solanum pseudo-capsicum. SOURCE(S) "A Modern Herbal" An Illustrated Herbal Crystal Coven Full Moon Paradise Pagan Daily News 12/24/2003 |
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