What is the great angelica?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

October 20, 2003

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Alexanders, masterwort, or great angelica (Angelica atropurpurea Linnaeus) is a member of the Apiaceae or Umbelliferae, the family of celery and parsley. The plants grow to 2 meters (6 feet) and are found in rich river bottomland soils and swampy areas of eastern North America from southern Canada into the northern U.S. Like its European cousin (Angelica archangelica), great angelica is an aromatic plant.

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From 1820 to 1860, great angelica had official standing in the United States Pharmacopoeia. It was recommended as a tonic, a stimulant, a diuretic, and a diaphoretic (increases perspiration). Taken after meals, it was considered a carminative relieving heartburn, colic (abdominal cramping), and flatulence. ("Archangelica Atropurpurea.--Purple Angelica", H.W. Felter, MD and John Uri Lloyd, PhrM, PhD, King's American Dispensatory, 1898)

Once harvested, great angelica had to be carefully prepared for storage; the dried pieces attract insects. Charles Millspaugh mentions the stems were cut into sections and candied, but that by the late 1800s, few people made angelica candies, "...a practice now nearly extinct". From the 1850s to the later part of that century, heavy doses of the powdered dried root were dispensed under the belief that it "will cause a disgust for all spirituous liquors." The powdered root causes emesis and it is easy to imagine that one cannot think of "spirituous liquors" while one is vomiting.

If the Native Americans had uses for great angelica, only one was recorded. There is a general acceptance that the freshly dug root is poisonous. Millspaugh mentioned that among Canadian Natives, the great angelica root was a means of suicide. ("Angelica Atropurpurea", American Medicinal Plants, Charles F. Millspaugh, 1892, reprinted 1974, Dover Publications)

The Wisconsin State Herbarium, University of Wisconsin, Madison has a great photograph of great angelica taken by Robert W. Freckmann. To view this purple-stemmed plant, click on the link:

http://www.botany.wisc.edu/wisflora/scripts/detail.asp?SpCode=ANGATR

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