Bearberry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearberry

Bearberry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bearberries are three species of dwarf shrubs in the genus Arctostaphylos. Unlike the other species of Arctostaphylos (see Manzanita), they are adapted to Arctic and Subarctic climates, and have a circumpolar distribution in northern North America, Asia and Europe, one with a small highly disjunctive population in Central America.

Bearberry

Contents
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

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Species Uses in folk medicine History and folklore Sources Footnotes

Scientic classication Kingdom: Plantae (unranked): Angiosperms (unranked): Eudicots (unranked): Asterids Order: Family: Genus: Ericales Ericaceae Arctostaphylos Species Arctostaphylos alpina Alpine Bearberry Arctostaphylos rubra - Red Bearberry Arctostaphylos uva-ursi Common Bearberry

Species
The name "bearberry" for the plant derives from the [1] The fruit, edible fruit which is a favorite food of bears. also called bearberries, are edible and are sometimes gathered for food. The leaves of the plant are used in [2] herbal medicine.

Alpine Bearberry - A. alpina (L.) Spreng (syn. Arctous alpinus (L.) Niedenzu). A procumbent shrub 1030 centimetres (3.912 in) high. Leaves not winter green, but dead leaves persist on stems for several years. Berries dark purple to black. Distribution: circumpolar, at high latitudes, from Scotland east across Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland; southern limits in Europe in the Pyrenees and the Alps, in Asia to the Altay Mountains, and in North America to British Columbia in the west, and Maine and New Hampshire in the United States in the east. Red Bearberry - A. rubra (Rehd. & Wilson) Fernald (syn. Arctous rubra (Rehder and E.H. Wilson) Nakai; Arctous alpinus var. ruber Rehd. and Wilson). A procumbent shrub 1030 centimetres (3.912 in) high. Leaves deciduous, falling in autumn to leave bare stems. Berries red. Distribution: in the mountains of Sichuan, southwestern China north and east to eastern Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada east to northern Quebec. Common Bearberry - A. uva-ursi (L.) Spreng.

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Bearberry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Other recorded old English common names include Arberry, Bear's Grape, Crowberry, Foxberry, Hog Cranberry, Kinnikinnick, Mealberry, Mountain Box, Mountain Cranberry, Mountain Tobacco, Sandberry, Upland Cranberry, Uva-ursi.

Uses in folk medicine

The plant contains arbutin, ursolic acid, tannic acid, gallic acid, some essential oil and resin, hydroquinones (mainly arbutin, up to 17%), tannins (up to 15%), phenolic glycosides [3] and avonoids.

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Arctostaphylos alpina

The leaves are picked any time during the summer and dried for use in infusions, liquid extracts, medicinal tea bags and tablets believed [4] to be potentially eective in folk medicine.

Bearberry appears to be relatively safe, although large doses may cause nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, severe back pain and tinnitus.[5] It should not be used during [4][6][7] pregnancy, breast feeding, or in children or patients with kidney disease. The ecacy and safety[5] of bearberry treatment in humans remains unproven, despite [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Although human pilot studies long-term use in folk medicine. [15][16] there has been no substantive human research conducted. exist,

History and folklore

Bearberry was rst documented in The Physicians of Myddfai, a 13th century Welsh herbal, it was also described by Clusius in 1601, and recommended for medicinal use in 1763 by Gerhard and others. Often called uva-ursi, from the Latin uva, "grape, berry of the vine", ursi, "bear", i.e. "bear's grape". It rst appeared in the London Pharmacopoeia in 1788. In Strathnairn, Scotland there is a hill, known as Brin Mains, but which is known in Scottish Gaelic as "Cnoc nan Cnimhseag" which means "The hill of the Bearberries". Folk tales suggest Marco Polo thought the Chinese were using it as a diuretic. Bearberry leaves are used medicinally in parts of [2] Native Europe, and are ocially classied as a phytomedicine. Americans use bearberry leaves with tobacco and other herbs in religious ceremonies, both as a smudge (type of incense) or

Common Bearberry from

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smoked in a sacred pipe carrying the smoker's prayers to the Great Spirit. When mixed with tobacco or other herbs, it is referred to as kinnikinnick, from an Algonquian (probably Delaware) word for "mixture". Among the ingredients in [17] and the inner kinnikinnick were non-poisonous sumac leaves, [17] bark of certain bushes such as red osier dogwood (silky cornell), [18] alder, to improve the taste of the bearberry leaf.

Thom Flora von Deutschland, sterreich und der Schweiz 1885

chokecherry, and

Sources
"Mountain Nature" (http://www.mountainnature.com/Plants /PlantsLatinNameResult.asp?ID=125) . http://www.mountainnature.com/. Ward Cameron Enterprises. http://www.mountainnature.com/Plants /PlantsLatinNameResult.asp?ID=125.

Footnotes
1. ^ Schoeld, Janice J. (1989) Discovering wild plants: Alaska, western Canada, the Northwest Alaska Northwest Books, page 217, ISBN 978-0-88240-355-7 2. ^ a b Pegg, Ronald B.; Rybarczyk, Anna and Amarowicz, Ryszard (2008) "Chromatographic Separation of Tannin Fractions from a Bearberry-leaf (Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi L. Sprengel) Extract by Se-hplc a Short Report" (http://journal.pan.olsztyn.pl /fd.php?f=1102) Polish Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences 58(4): pp. 485490 3. ^ Hnsel, Rudolf; Keller, K.; Rimpler, H.; and Schneider, G. (1992) "Uvae ursi folium (Brentraubenbltter)" In: Hagers Handbuch der pharmazeutischen Praxis: 4, Drogen A D (5th Edition) Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 330336, ISBN 3-540-52631-5 4. ^ a b See Bearberry in Blumenthal M, Busse W, Goldberg A, et al. (editors) (1998) The Complete German Commission E Monographs: Therapeutic Guide to Herbal Medicines American Botanical Council, Austin, Texas, ISBN 978-0-9655555-0-0 5. ^ a b Another herb sometimes recommended for UTI is bearberry, also known as uva ursi. Some concerns about this herb exist. Specically, it is not clearly eective for UTI prevention, it appears to be less eective with acidic urine, it may cause nausea and vomiting, and it contains chemicals that may have cancer-causing properties. Bowling, Allen C. (2007) Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis (2 nd edition) Demos Medical Publishing, New York, page 127 (http://books.google.com /books?id=YMyyuFcPC4YC&pg=PA127) , ISBN 978-1-932603-54-5 6. ^ Nordeng H. and Havnen, G.C. (2005) "Impact of socio-demographic factors, knowledge and attitude on the use of herbal drugs in pregnancy" Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica 84(1): pp. 2633, note 16, doi:10.1111/j.0001-6349.2005.00648.x (http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.0001-6349.2005.00648.x) . 7. ^ Borins, M. (1998) "The dangers of using herbs: What your patients need to know" Postgraduate medicine 104(1): pp. 9195, 99100. 8. ^ Jahodar L., Jilek P., Paktova M., and Dvorakova V. (1985) "Antimicrobial eect of arbutin and an extract of the leaves of Arctostaphylos uva-ursi in vitro" Ceskoslovenska Farmacie 34: pp. 174178 9. ^ Moskalenko S. (1986) "Preliminary screening of far-Eastern ethnomedical plants for antibacterial activity" Journal of Ethnopharmacology 15: pp. 231259 10. ^ Annuk H., Hirmo S., Turi E., Mikelsaar M., Arak E., and Wadstrom T. (1999) "Eect on cell surface hydrophobicity and susceptibility of Helicobacter pylori to medicinal plant extracts" FEMS Microbiology Letters 172: pp. 4145

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Bearberry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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11. ^ Park S. (1994) "The repression of listeriolysin O expression in Listeria monocytogenes by the phenolic beta-D-glucoside, arbutin" Letters in Applied Microbiology 19: pp. 258260 12. ^ Robertson J. and Howard L. (1987) "Eect of carbohydrates on growth of Ureaplasma urealyticum and Mycoplasma hominis" Journal of Clinical Microbiology 25: pp. 160161 13. ^ Ng T.B., Ling J.M., Wang Z.T., Cai J.N., and Xu G.J. (1996) "Examination of coumarins, avonoids and polysaccharopeptide for antibacterial activity" General Pharmacology: The Vascular System 27: pp. 12371240 14. ^ Nikolaev S., SHantanova L., Mondodoev A., Rakshaina M., Lonshakova K., and Glyzin V. (1996) "Pharmacological activity of the dry extract from the leaves for Arctostaphylos uva-ursi L in experimental nephropyelitis" Rastitelnye Resursy (Plant Research) 32: pp. 118123 15. ^ a b Larsson B., Jonasson A., and Fianu S. (1993) "Prophylactic eect of UVA-E in women with recurrent cystitis: A preliminary report" Current Therap Res Clin Exper 53: pp. 441443 16. ^ Parvez, Shoukat et al. (2006) "Survey and mechanism of skin depigmenting and lightening agents" Phytotherapy Res 20(1): pp.921 934, doi:10.1002/ptr.1954 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2Fptr.1954) 17. ^ a b Upham, Warren (2001) Minnesota place names: a geographical encyclopedia (3rd edition) Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, page 481 (http://books.google.com/books?id=ho23eS5qjNgC&pg=PA481&lpg=PA481) , ISBN 0-87351-396-7 18. ^ Sta (2009) "Bearberry" (http://lewis-clark.org/content/contentarticle.asp?ArticleID=1355) Discovering Lewis and Clark The Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation

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