BETH ROOT
Trillium pendulum, Trillium erectum
COMMON NAMES: Birth root, wake-robin, Indian balm, American ground lily.
FEATURES: Trillium is a genus of the family Liliaceae, common to temperate North America and eastern
Asia. This flowering herb has twenty-five to thirty perennial species that thrive in the acid mold of rich,
moist woods.
The root has the faint fragrance of turpentine and a peculiar aromatic and sweetish astringent taste when
first chewed, but becomes bitter and acid, causing salivation. Its shape is remindful of the popular ginseng
root. The simple stems range for 3 to 30 inches high, rising from the apex of a blunt tuberlike rhizome ½–
1½ inches thick. The leaves are 2–15 inches long and are net-veined and somewhat mottled. The three-
petaled flowers with three sepals are identified in May and June. Varying in color according to species,
they range from white to pink and sometimes rose-maroon, red-brown, purple, green, yellow-green, or
bright yellow. The fruit is a pink or red three- or six-angled berry.
MEDICINAL PART: Root.
SOLVENTS: Diluted alcohol, water.
BODILY INFLUENCE: Astringent, tonic, antiseptic, alterative, pectoral.
USES: The Native Americans used beth root as an aid to lessen pain and difficulty at the time of delivery,
hence the synonym, birth root. Taken internally, beth root has a soothing tonic effect. The properties of
Trillium are due to its active principle; it is used for all forms of hemorrhages, such as bleeding from the
nose, mouth, stomach, bowels, and bladder.
In female disorders it is especially valuable as a general astringent to the uterine organs and should be
used in fluor albus, menorrhagia (profuse menstruation). It is considered almost a specific for female
weakness and leukorrhea, or whites.
DOSE: Useful in pulmonary conditions, beth root with the accompanying herb slippery elm (Ulmus rubra)
and a small portion of lobelia seed (Lobelia inflata), in powder form 10–20 grains.
One teaspoonful of the powdered root boiled in 1 pint of milk is an expedient help in diarrhea and
dysentery. For the above mentioned, 1 teaspoonful of the powdered root to 1 cup of boiling water, 2–3
cups a day, or more often in wineglassful amounts as case requires.
EXTERNALLY: The root made into a poultice is very useful in tumors, indolent and offensive ulcers, stings
of insects, and to restrain gangrene. The leaves boiled in lard make a good external application in ulcers
and tumors.
HOMEOPATHIC CLINICAL: Tincture of the fresh root for bladder (catarrh of), climacteric, diabetes,
dysentery, fainting (with flooding), fibroma (hemorrhages from), hemorrhages (postpartum, antepartum),
menorrhagia, metrorrhagia, writer’s cramp.