Crossword clues for scrophularia
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scrophularia \Scroph`u*la"ri*a\, n. [NL. So called because it was reputed to be a remedy for scrofula.] (Bot.) A genus of coarse herbs having small flowers in panicled cymes; figwort.
Wikipedia
The genus Scrophularia of the family Scrophulariaceae comprises about 200 species of herbaceous flowering plants commonly known as figworts. Species of Scrophularia all share square stems, opposite leaves and open two-lipped flowers forming clusters at the end of their stems. The genus is found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but concentrated in Asia with only a few species in Europe and North America.
Scrophularia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Phymatopus hectoides.
Some species in this genus are known to contain potentially useful substances, such as iridoids, and several Scrophularia species, such as the Ningpo figwort or Chinese figwort (S. ningpoensis), have been used by herbal medicine practitioners around the world. The name Scrophularia comes from scrofula, a form of tuberculosis, because several species have been used to treat this disease.
As a herb used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, it has found use in a formula to treat arthritis. The herb has demonstrated a powerful painkilling ability equal to that of cortisone and twice as effective as indomethacin, a popular NSAID used to treat arthritis. Scrophularia exerts these significant analgesic effects with virtually no side effects.
Extracts of Scrophularia have been shown to reduce edema, cell infiltration and proliferation of activated T-lymphocytes in joint tissues. Additionally, Scrophularia has been shown to inhibit a number of inflammatory factors, including prosta-glandin E2, leukotriene B4, NO, interleukin-1beta, interleukin-2, interleukin-4 and interferon-gamma, but with no negative effect on the production of interleukin-10, a powerful cytokine involved in the regulation of inflammatory responses. Moreover, Scrophularia is the source of a unique glycoterpenoid, Verbascosaponin A, which is twice as potent as indomethacin for relieving inflammation and pain. .
Usage examples of "scrophularia".
The Water Figwort has obtained the name of Water Betony from a certain resemblance of its leaves to those of the Wood Betony, but it differs entirely from that plant in every other respect, not being even closely related to it, and nowadays is more generally called the Water Figwort, the name Figwort being derived from the form of the root in another member of the genus Scrophularia, the Knotted Figwort (S.