The plant that “can make you immortal if eaten” is actually everywhere on the ground?

Plant names are all kinds of strange and come from different sources. One practice is to use plants that already have names to name new plants, whether it is scientific names or Chinese names, this is done. If there is a plant whose leaves look a bit like elm leaves and are all over the ground, then this plant will probably be called - Sanguisorba officinalis.

Boiled water and taken for "immortality"

As luck would have it, there is a plant called Sanguisorba officinalis, and the reason for its name is roughly the same. Sanguisorba officinalis is widely distributed, and the ancient Chinese had a certain understanding of it very early. As early as the Wei and Jin Dynasties, people at that time used Sanguisorba to boil stones to practice Taoism. Jia Sixie of the Northern Wei Dynasty mentioned in "Qimin Yaoshu" that boiling Sanguisorba officinalis with other ingredients and drinking it can make one immortal.

Burnet has dark red calyxes but no petals | Wikimedia Commons

Modern people know that those who claim to be immortals are scammers, but for the ancients, this was very attractive. The sanitary conditions in ancient times were not good, and diarrhea, parasitic infections, and bacterial infections were all common diseases. It just so happened that the tannin content of dandelion was relatively high, which had some antidiarrheal and antibacterial effects, which might have been very helpful to the ancients. Therefore, eating more dandelion might reduce the threat of disease, live longer, and have a slightly higher quality of life, and this was considered to be immortality.

In the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen quoted Tao Hongjing's explanation of the name of Sanguisorba officinalis in his Compendium of Materia Medica: "Its leaves are like elms but longer, and when they first grow on the ground, they are named so." He also quoted Su Song's view that "today, it is found everywhere in plains, rivers and lakes," which confirmed the distribution range of Sanguisorba officinalis. Xu Guangqi, who was slightly later than Li Shizhen, also believed in his Complete Book of Agricultural Administration that Sanguisorba officinalis was widely distributed, "today, it is found everywhere."

The plant was named after Carl Linnaeus and specimens of it are preserved in the Linnaeus Museum in Uppsala, Sweden | linnaeusuppsala.com

Temperate zones throughout the Northern Hemisphere

When we discuss the distribution of a plant, we cannot just look at what the ancients said. We still have to rely more on the voucher specimens - where the specimens of the species are collected, we can think that is the distribution area of ​​the species. According to the Flora of China (English version) compiled from voucher specimens collected from all over the country, Sanguisorba officinalis is distributed in almost all provinces and regions in the country north of Hainan, almost reaching the ancient saying of "everywhere".

Of course, the distribution of Sanguisorba officinalis is not limited to my country, but is distributed throughout the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere. Interestingly, the Sanguisorba officinalis in western North America is a native species, while the one in eastern North America is an alien species imported from Europe. Such a wide distribution is of course reflected in the number of specimen records. Some of the very rare species we have introduced before often have very few specimens in total, and some even have only one specimen. The number of Sanguisorba officinalis specimens is huge, and more than 130,000 specimen records can be found on gbif.org. The distribution map provided by this website also shows that they appear densely in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere.

Distribution map of Sanguisorba officinalis specimens | gbif.org

Changes in form, spitting water at night

The wide distribution of Sanguisorba officinalis causes great morphological variation in the species. It is difficult for individuals that are far apart to have effective gene exchange, so the variations they form will be preserved, and over time, some morphological differences will be formed. Taxonomists have established several subspecific levels for Sanguisorba officinalis based on the condition of the hair, the length of the stamens, the length-to-width ratio of the leaves, the changes in flower color, etc. However, some taxonomists believe that these trait differences are continuously changing, and it is not necessary to set subspecific levels. Whether or not subspecific levels are established, it can reflect the fact that the morphology of Sanguisorba officinalis itself varies greatly.

A drawing of the Burnet plant by botanist Carl Axel Magnus Lindman at the beginning of the last century | Bilder ur Nordens Flora, no. 296

If the burdock grows in a place with relatively moist soil, there will often be many small water droplets on the serrated tips of the leaves in the early morning. These small water droplets are not dew drops formed by condensation of water vapor due to the low temperature at night or in the early morning, but a physiological phenomenon of many plants - spitting water.

At night, most of the stomata on the leaf surface of the burdock elm are closed, which reduces transpiration and reduces water loss in the body; at the same time, the soil is moist and has a high water content, so the water in the soil will be transported into the plant body. However, too much water is not a good thing for plants. Therefore, plants will use the water spouts on the edge of the leaves to discharge excess water from their bodies to ensure that their physiological activities can proceed normally. The ability of plants to spout water is usually considered to be normal root physiological activities and good growth conditions. Dew condensation usually appears on the surface of the leaves, and the water comes from the air; plant water spouting is different from dew, it usually appears on the edge of the leaves, and the water comes from the plant body.

Strawberry leaves spit water, and the same phenomenon occurs with the burdock elm | Wikimedia Commons

Flowering order varies

Sanguisorba belongs to the genus Sanguisorba of the Rosaceae family. This genus has a total of 20 to 30 species, which are not large in size, and not all species have such a wide distribution range as Sanguisorba. Among the seven species distributed in China, the one with the smallest distribution range is Sanguisorba applanata, which is a species endemic to China and is only found in Hebei, Shandong and Jiangsu.

The genus Sanguisorba has a unifying feature - a dense spike or head of flowers, consisting of sepals only and no petals. Interestingly, the order in which the flowers in the spike open varies from species to species. In some species, the flowers open gradually from the top to the base of the spike, as is the case with Sanguisorba; in others, the flowers open gradually from the base to the top of the spike; and in others, there is no obvious pattern.

The inflorescence of Sanguisorba officinalis, opening from top to bottom | Unknown Plant

The latest research shows that the inflorescence of the genus Sanguisorba is not a spike inflorescence, but a compound botryoids, and the order in which the flowers in the inflorescence open is related to the order in which each individual botryoid matures. This discovery modifies the description of the morphology of the genus Sanguisorba and also preliminarily explains why the order of flowering is different despite the same "spike inflorescence".

We hope that scientists will conduct more in-depth research to explain at a deeper level what causes the differences in flowering order.

The same small white flowered burdock (Sanguisorba tenuifolia var. alba) that blooms from top to bottom | Unknown Plant

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