By Tulla Lightfoot
Scientific name: Podophllum peltatum
I came upon patches of these strange plants while walking on the trail of a tiny nature preserve in the middle of a nearby suburban neighborhood. I had never seen anything like them before and was stunned to discover them in my path. The green leaves resembled beach umbrellas that would be the perfect size for rabbits, lizards, or perhaps woodland elves and fairies. The leaves were raised about a foot off the ground and so dense that I couldn’t see the ground beneath them. I thought for sure these plants must be some exotic invasive species, but since I didn’t see any flowers anywhere, I only took one photograph of them and then just walked away. About a week later, I did a little research on them and discovered that the plants are called Mayapples, and they are native to the United States! They are called Mayapples because the flowers of the plants are supposed to resemble apple blossoms. Flowers! I couldn’t believe that I had just passed them by and that I had never seen them before.
Wondering where the flowers were, as soon as I could I went back to that greenway and hiked down the big hill over to the Mayapple patches. Again I didn’t see any flowers, so I started crawling on the ground to search underneath the leaves to see if they were somehow growing off of the stems. This was difficult. The single blossoms were well hidden, and I had to carefully move each leaf to search below it so I didn’t crush any of the plants. Not every plant had a flower. In fact, very few of the plants had flowers. The leaves hid the ground so successfully that I couldn’t see anything beneath me and made me worry if there were any critters, especially snakes or spiders, hiding down below. Also, I was the only person on the greenway. Mine was the only car parked on the street near the path, and the path was dark and spooky. The woods were very quiet and very scary, and there was more poison ivy growing everywhere than anything could possible need. I was tentative at best in my search. But with persistence, I was triumphant. I found one flower, or maybe two, took a couple of photos, and ran out of the eerie preserve as fast as I could.
The scientific name for Mayapple is Podophyllum peltatum. It is a member of the Barberry family, otherwise known as the Berberidaceae family to scientists. Other common names for the plant are American Mandrake, Pomme de Mal, Indian Apple, or Ground Lemon. The plant can have one or two leaves, but a flower will only grow in the axil of two leaves. The short-lived flower is white to rose colored and well hidden under the leaves, but it’s still visited by long tongued bees. The leaves are described as showy and conspicuous. Like umbrellas, they remain closed until the stem is fully grown up to one or one and half feet tall. Then the leaves open wide, reaching up to a foot across to form a dense mat in the damp, open woods. The leaves are palmate, which means they are joined together like the fingers on the palm of your hand, and each leaf has from 5 to 9 lobes. In my Greenway the leaves were very uniform with each leaf having six lobes.
Mayapples are a perennial herb which grows from rhizomes of thick, dark tubers and also from roots. The plant’s pollinated flower becomes a lemon-shaped fruit, a berry, which contains several seeds. The individual berry start out green but become golden tinged with pink as it ripens. Mayapple berries are the perfect food for box turtles, and the fruit’s skin gives off an aroma that is irresistible to raccoons. However, box turtles are the main distributors of the seeds. Turtles relish the fruit because it hangs lower and lower to the ground as it grows bigger and ripens until it is just the right height for a turtle snack. If you see Mayapples, you can be sure that box turtles are close at hand. Seeds that pass through the turtle’s gut actually germinate better than those that have not, but other animals like raccoons, may also distribute the seeds and help the plant spread.
Sometimes the plant is grown as an ornamental plant because of its attractive leaves. Because they are very poisonous, they are not eaten by rabbits or deer. But the Mayapple is an early spring plant, emerging from the ground before the trees produce leaves. Most of the year the plant is dormant, and by the time I returned to the Greenway on May 11th to search for the fruit, the plants were in pretty bad shape looking. They were withered and covered with yellow spots. My research says that Mayapple plants don’t do well in direct sunlight, but the plants don’t seem to do well in heat either.
The entire plant, except for the fruit, is deadly toxic. Even the seeds are toxic and need to be scooped out before eating, although some people eat the seeds too for its laxative effect. The fruit becomes soft and yellow as it ripens and will be soft to the touch. Its skin can be slightly wrinkled and supposedly has a strong odor, which I didn’t detect. If you find a lot of fruit you can make it into jelly. But finding a lot of fruit is probably difficult. Only a two-leafed plant will produce a berry, and you’re in competition with countless box turtles and raccoons for it. Eaten alone, the berry has the texture of a mushy pear, with an interesting flavor that is so unique that it’s difficult for me to describe. Unripened fruit is toxic to dogs so be careful if your pet is accompanying you one the trail. One of my sources said that even touching the plant could be harmful to dogs, but this was not confirmed by anyone else.
Podophylin resin comes from the roots of the Mayapple plant. Podophyllotoxin can be extracted from the plant. This polymer is also found in another species of Podophyllum called “hexandrum” or the Himalayan Mayapple, which grows in the mountainous regions of India. Podophyllotoxin is an antimitotic, or a substance that blocks cell growth by stopping cell division. Two important anti-tumor drugs have been developed from it, etoposide and eniposide. Podophyllotoxin cream is prescribed in New Zealand to stop the spread of genital warts caused by the HPV virus. Unfortunately the cream can also harm healthy skin so you have to have good aim to use it. Podophyllotoxin can also be used against cancer. It prevents cell division and is used in anti-tumor therapy against a variety of cancers including cancer of the testicles, breast, pancreas, lungs, stomach and ovaries. The Himalayan Mayapple has shown potential in treating rheumatoid arthritis.
Mayapples are found growing in Eastern North America west to Texas. The plant has been used for centuries by Native Americans as a medicine to treat parasitic worm infections, deafness, and snake bites. It was also used as a purgative and laxative. It was used by early European settlers as a purgative emetic to clean their livers, and expel worms. The roots of the plant were also used to cure jaundice, constipation, hepatitis, fevers and syphilis. It was even recommended as a poison for those wishing to end it all and commit suicide!
Is anyone wondering why one of the common names for the Mayapple is “American Mandrake”? Mandrakes are six species of plants in the nightshade or the belladonna “Solanaceae” family. The plants grow in the Himalayas and Mediterranean regions and have been, and are still, valued for their medicinal and magical effects. The scientific names for the most common of the Mandrakes are Mandragora officinarum, blooming in the spring, and Mandragora autumnalis which blooms in the fall. These plants are perennials with a large taproot that often resembles the shape of a person. It has been reported that like a person, the roots emits a noise similar to a horrible human scream when being pulled out of the earth. This scream has even been noted to drive people mad! A useful but poisonous plant, the Mandrake has been used for centuries for medicinal purposes curing everything from insomnia to erectile disfunction. The plant contains a long list of chemicals that can cure other aliments like stomach ulcers, colic, and constipation, and was also used for asthma, hay fever, convulsions, rheumatism and whooping cough. The Mandrake plant is a good source of hyoscyamine, which is used today in medicine for gastrointestinal conditions because it decrease stomach motions. It is also helpful for problems with one’s bowels and pancreas, and it reduces excess saliva production for those with Parkinson’s disease.
The Mandrake plant is a large leaved one that grows low to the ground in a rosette pattern. It has pretty violet flowers that produce small round berries called, “Satan’s apples”. This fruit smells like apples, but has a powerful effect when eaten. The Mandrake plant contains alkaloids hyoscamine, scopolamine, and Atropine, which effect the central nervous system and can relax one, put one to sleep, or produce hallucinogenic and narcotic effects. Used as an anesthetic since the time of the ancient Greeks, Atropine is an effective sedative that blocks the messages of the brain from getting to the rest of the body. This can result in lack of muscle coordination, excitement, the inability to control eye movements, delirium, mental confusion, and hallucinations. Ancient Europeans believed that just the right amount, can protect a soldier in battle, or give someone the power to predict the future! If this sounds like fun, there are drawbacks to eating parts of the Mandrake plant from blurred vision, dry mouth, dizziness, and abdominal pain, to vomiting and diarrhea. Too much of the Mandrake plant will lead to inability to swallow or perform voluntary movements, and internal paralysis which leads to he slowing of one’s heartbeat and even death. In the Odyssey, Circe brewed a tea out of Mandrake plant that turned Odysseus’ men into swine.
You can buy seeds online for the European Mandrake plant which is surprising because of its hallucinogenic properties. So far it has not escaped gardens and is not growing wild in North America which is lucky for our children and especially our dogs. If you do choose to plant it, make sure you put it somewhere children and pets can’t get at it. The apple-like aroma of the berries might be tempting, and a large serving could be deadly. So be sure to plant it well out of their reach.
If you want to learn more about these Mayapples and Mandrake plants check out the references listed below:
University of Texas, Plant Database, “Podophyllum peltatum” https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=POPE
Susan Mahr, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, “Mayapple, Podophllum peltatum” https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/mayapple-podophyllum-peltatum/ retrieved 5-11-22
Dyson Forbes, Forbes Wild Foods, “Mayapple – Dangerous & Delicious,” April 2017, https://www.wildfoods.ca/blogs/main/mayapple-dangerous-delicious
Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks, Gallery, Podohyllum Pelatatum (Mayapple/American Mandrake) https://www.monticello.org/sites/library/exhibits/lucymarks/gallery/mayapple.html#:~:text=Roots%20of%20the%20mayapple%20were,as%20%E2%80%9Can%20excellent%20Emetic%E2%80%9D.
Butler Soil and Water Conservation District, Fairfield County, Ohio, “Mayapples & Box Turtles.”
Vanessa Ngan, Derm NZ, “Podophyllotoxin”, 2005 https://dermnetnz.org/topics/podophyllotoxin
Hamidreza Ardalani et al, National Library of Medicine, “Podophyllotoxin: a novel potential natural anticancer agent” 2017 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580867/
Wikipedia, Podophyllotoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podophyllotoxin
Dog Day Care Paws, “Mandrake” https://www.pawsdogdaycare.com/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants/mandrake
USDA U.S. Forest Service, “The Powerful Solanaceae: Mandrake” https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/Mind_and_Spirit/mandrake.shtml
Bonnie L. Grant, Gardening Know How, “Is Mandrake Poisonous – Can You Eat Mandrake Root” https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/mandrake/is-mandrake-poisonous.htm