Plant of the Week 12/05/2005: Toothache Plant (Spilanthes acmella)

Plant of the Week 12/05/2005

Spilanthes acmella (L.) Murray

Photographed by: Chelsie Vandaveer
Credits: Toothache plant photographed in personal garden.
Other Information: Olympus C-8080wz

The first taste of the leaf is insipid. With a little more chewing, the herb bites back with a warmth not unlike citrus and pepper. The tanginess spreads and so does tingling numbness. If one chews too many leaves or a flower head...well, one should take care not to drool.

The toothache plant or Paracress (Spilanthes acmella (L.) Murray) is one of two species known by these common names; the second is Spilanthes oleracea Jacquin. The sixty or so species of Spilanthes are scattered around the world's tropics. They are members of the Asteraceae, the daisy family.

Toothache plants contain spilanthol which acts as an anesthetic/analgesic. The plants have also shown anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. The plants have long been used in India for the treatment of gum diseases and dental caries. And it is a sialagogue, stimulating the salivary glands to increase flow of saliva and consequently promoting digestion.

The yellow and brown cone shaped flower is actually a compact inflorescence composed of numerous tiny flowers. The inflorescence begins as a disk; the center expands upward as the individual flowers develop. The yellow portion of the cone consists of those flowers which have opened and are shedding pollen. In 1763, Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin created the generic name from the Greek spilos "spot" and anthos "flower", an allusion to the brown spot at the top of the inflorescence.

The two toothache plants differ slightly in size and coloring. Spilanthes oleracea has a reddish tinge, grows larger, and has fewer flower heads than S. acmella. Some botanists feel the two are simply variations of the same species. In 1985, they were renamed as a single species, Acmella oleracea (L.) R.K. Jansen, based on Jansen's extensive re-evaluation of their classification.

(Compiled from: Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, NY, 1976; "Preliminary studies on anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities of Spilanthes acmella in experimental animal models", A. Chakraborty, R.K. Devi, S. Rita, K. Sharatchandra, and T.I. Singh, Indian Journal of Pharmacology, 36, 2004; The Century Unabridged Dictionary, 1889, published to the internet by Global Language Resources, 2001-2005; and "Spilanthes acmella", author not listed, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2005)