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 | Savine Other Names: Savine Tops
Botanical Name: Sabina cacumina
Family: N.O. Coniferae |
Description: |
| A shrub growing to a height of a few feet in Britain, but found as a tree in some Greek Islands, evergreen and compact in growth, spreads horizontally, branches round, tough, and slender; bark, when young, pale green, becoming rough with age on trunk; leaves small, ovate, dark green, in four rows, opposite, scale-like, ovate-lanceolate, having on back a shallow groove containing an oblong or roundish gland. The fruit is a blackish purple berry, ovoid in shape, containing three seeds. Flowers unisexual; odour peculiar, terebinthinate; taste disagreeable, resinous and bitter. |
Habitat: |
| Britain. Indigenous to Northern States of America, Middle and Southern Europe. |
Constituents: |
| Volatile oil, resin, gallic acid, chlorophyl extractive, lignin, calcareous salts, a fixed oil, gum and salts of potassia. |
Medicinal Usage: |
Savine is an irritant when administered internally or locally; it is a powerful emmenagogue in large doses; it is an energetic poison leading to gastro enteritis collapse and death. It should never be used in pregnancy, as it produces abortion. It is rarely given internally, but is useful as an ointment and as a dressing to blisters in order to promote discharge; also applied externally to syphilitic warts, and other skin trouble. The powdered leaves mixed with an equal part of verdigris are used to destroy warts.
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Ancient Lore: |
SAVINE JUNIPERUS SABINA
It is a most powerful detersive, and has so violent an effect upon the uterine passages if used imprudently, that wicked women have employed it to very ill purposes.
This is a small evergreen shrubby tree, with branches set close together and clothed with narrow prickly leaves resembling Cypress. It produces small mossy green flowers succeeded by small, flattish, blackish-blue berries.
Where to find it: It is planted in gardens, but is indigenous to southern Europe and the northern states of the USA.
Flowering time: Summer.
Astrology: Under the dominion of Mars.
Medicinal virtues: It is a powerful provoker of the catamenia, causing abortion and expelling the birth. It is good to destroy worms in children, the juice being mixed with milk and sweetened with sugar. Beaten into a cataplasm with hog's lard, it cures children's scabby heads.
It is a fine opener of obstructions of any kind for jaundice, dropsy, scurvy Band rheumatism. It deserves the regard of surgeons, as it is a very potent scourer and cleanser of old sordid stinking ulcers, either used in lotions, lamentations, ointments or the powder mixed with honey.
Modern uses: Savine is now considered to be unsafe for internal administration because its effects are unpredictable. It irritates the intestinal tract causing gastroenteritis. It is definitely contra-indicated in pregnancy. It can be used externally in ointments to stimulate discharge from blisters, and to destroy warts. |
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