Liliaceae Anhängsel
[Matthew Wood]
= Nat-m-ähnlich;
“Forced out vs. Held in”
A medley of opposites.
Bronchien (effects of smoking)
Female organs: cramps/cysts/birth.
Glands
Chlorogalum pomeridianum
= California soaproot/= Amole/= "wild potato." Asparagales.x
Lil-a.: Pale/skin/acne/
Lilt-t.: Robust/red/vibratory appearance
China: Vergessen der Sorgen; Geburt eines Sohnes
Flower essences:
In our research, we have found that plantswhich
are related botanically generally exhibitaffinity in their
flower essence qualities. Theplant families, in particular,
express broadarchetypal properties, with members of eachfamily representing variations on a commontheme.For
example, Lily Family plants haveminimally-rooted, watery
bulbs. They arethus only loosely connected with the earth,holding their forces in a womb-like water oflife. On the other hand, their star-shaped,typically
hexagonal flowers reflect the pristineharmony of the
celestial spheres.Flower Essence Repertory, page 49©
by the Flower Essence Society. All Rights Reserved.Mariposa
LilyCalochortus leichtliniiThis
delicate white and mauve wildflower isfound in the mountains
of western NorthAmerica. Its tiny bulb grows in rocky
crevices,barely attached to the earth. A member of theLily Family, it has three cup-like petals, offsetby three smaller sepals.Star
of BethlehemOrnithogalum umbellatumNative
to Europe and North Africa, the Starof Bethlehem is
part of Dr. Bach’s emergencycombination formula. Its
round bulb and per-fect six-pointed star flower are
typical of LilyFamily plants that are related to the Onion(sometimes
classified separately as theAmaryllis Family)
Flower essences from Lily Familyplants, such as
Star Tulip, Mariposa Lily, Easter
Lily and Alpine Lily, generally workwith the
feminine, receptive aspects of thehuman soul, more
akin to the harmony ofthe spiritual world, yet
learning to face thechallenges of earthly life
‡ Lilies are
bulb plants. You can put such a bulb in water alone; it will root because it
doesn't need the
earth at all. It carries a bit of the
earth with it and makes of that its flower. The lily is a rather
unearthly plant. The lily is connected
with Gabriel, with the unborn, with the innocents or with death, all conditions
where there is a state of excarnation or of coming
incarnation. The time of the lilliacea is 0 h.
‡ Folgendes hat anthroposofische Einschlüße ‡
[Wilhelm Pelikan]
Sulphureous succulence, congestion and
rocketing growth
In the Liliaceae, the class of monocotyledons
reach their highest development, the pinnacle of flowering form. The lily
family offers quite a variety of forms, yet basically
it has a very simple, easily discernible pattern of growth. One feature
shown by the family type is etheric congestion,
watery, mucilaginous swelling. Bulbs, corms (= Knolle)
and rhizomes are characteristically formed, so that this plastic swelling and
congestive growth takes place beneath the surface of the soil; it frequently
extends also to the leaf process, holding it back close to the sphere of
subterranean organs, where rosettes may form. Bulb formation (below down
earth/½ in the earth and ½ above it) representing
a leaf principle held back in a closed-up, swollen bud, around a shoot
pushed down and compressed? Actual root development is poor and rather
primitive, as in many of the monocotyledons. This indicates that the Liliaceae arose during an early period of earth development
and plant evolution, a time when growth took place not in the solid, mineral
earth of today, but in a softer, more plastic, fluid soil. The plants belonging
to this family do give the impression of something childlike, soft, primitive,
indeed embryonic. What they desire, first and foremost, is to become a living
drop, a watery sphere.
A tremendous effort is required to move out of such watery succulence,
and advance to a flowering process of great intensity in scent, color, and form. A long period during which the plant rests
within the rounded sphere is followed by vehement release from tension,
arrow-straight upward-rocketing growth, with the plant giving itself up
entirely to the upper elements of light, air and warmth, and the worlds of color. The watery, mercurial principle gives way to a
tremendous sulfur process that needs the assistance
of the element sulfur itself to come about (Allioideae). Sulfur substance
enters into the fluid proteinic plasticity, releases
from it the sulfur-containing essential oil that is
found
in all members of the onion family, and channels it up into the volatile
sphere of floral scents. Thus the lily plant ascends from the fluid sphere to
the region of airy elements. Even the most lovely perfumes of this family, like
those of the lily-of-the-valley and the hyacinth, always have a hint of
something sharp and inflammatory, onion-sulfurous,
lingering in the background. It is because their protein processes are "sulfur-treated" like this that members of the Liliaceae, watery and succulent as they are, nevertheless
are also strongly permeated with light and warmth.
Liliaceae existence therefore swings to and
fro between mercury and sulfur principles. Salt, the
earth processes, have little part in it. Mineralization, lignification,
tree growth,
is unusual in the family. The assimilative process does not condense as
far as starch formation; it suffices for it to have concentrated as far as a
slimy, sugary stage that holds
on to the watery principle with great tenacity, preventing it from
evaporating into the air.
Despite the simplicity of its basic theme, the family type is capable of
producing much variety, and has given rise to approximately 2600 species. The
individual species are distributed over the whole of the earth; the far north
and alpine regions with their crystalline rock-forces, the "salt"
pole of the earth, have to do without them, however, whilst they love the sulfurous climates of the tropics and subtropics. There are
no aquatic or swamp plants among them, for water on the outside would only
interfere with formative forces closing themselves up within their own fluid
sphere. A drop form, waiting for the light to come and fill it with color, waiting to arise itself as a form of color, would be threatened in its existence as an
individual drop by large expanses of water, in danger of dissolving into them.
The cold of polar regions on the other hand would cause this fluid entity to
freeze and become an ice crystal.
Protein, the "water of life", always needs sulfur,
as we have stated in an earlier chapter, the substance "the spirit uses to
moisten its fingers" before it moulds the stuff of life.
In the Liliaceae, sulfur
assists mercury to make the transition into the flowering process.
With this transition into the flowering region, the lily process
explodes into another principle of form - the six-pointed star that is
characteristic of all the monocotyledons. What a transition this is, from a
drop form to a hexagon. The hexagon is of course inherent in the circle, with
the radius equal to the length of one side of the inscribed hexagon; in
geometrical terms, circle and hexagon show the most intimate relationship one
can think of. If we consider a drop of water, from its origin, the
precipitation of
a rain drop, making it subject to the earth, and then rising in the
opposite direction, upwards into the heights that are part of the cosmos ... up
there it may have been an ice
or snow crystal, until winter brought it floating down to earth. Water
has a drop form on the one hand, and the hexagonal shape of a snow crystal on
the other. In the lily,
this inner nature of water is expressed as a living form, rounded and
drop-like in the lower, and radiantly hexagonal in the upper organs.
The image could be expressed like this: the lily archetype streams down
from above as a six-pointed star, in cosmic purity and coolness, and melts into
a watery drop as it touches the surface of the earth.
The type outlined above is shown most clearly by the Liliaceae
growing in the temperate regions (Mediterranean). In early spring they produce
a head of leaves, keeping
it close to the congested subterranean organ: root stock/corm/bulb.
Often enough, this looks like an onion opening out half way. In the
summer-flowering species, a leaf element is taken upwards, spiraling,
with the flowering shoot, or may gather itself again, rosette-like, in a leafy
head at the top. The calyx with its three sepals loses its greenness, assuming
the same color as the three-petalled
corolla.
This gives a six-petalled appearance to the
flower.
Spring Summer Autumn
Snowdrops/Squill/bog asphodel/grape
hyacinth/daffodils/Narc./Tul. Lilies
and crown imperial meadow saffron.
This is how the family type
spreads itself across the growing season in our latitudes. In warmer climates,
the brief spring of deserts and steppes is made manifest by
Liliaceae. For one wondrous week, their life,
carefully protected below ground in corms and bulbs, floods the desolate earth
with the color and scent of millions of blooms. Bulb
formation may be pushed up above ground level to some distance, on a short,
stout stem, with thick, fleshy green leaves, pointed and prickly, the whole
structure opening out half-way or completely; after many years, often, of
vegetative stasis in this type of succulent structure, an impressive
inflorescence suddenly shoots upwards, like a candle or a rocket, and in this
the plant often exhales its life.
The aloes/dragon-trees (Africa), yucca/nolina
(desert steppes of Mexico/Texas/California), bowstring hemps = Sanseviera (India/Africa) "grass-tree"
(Australia).
In the 100 asparagus species, the bulb has become a much branched system
of underground shoots; the leaves of these tall and slender climbing shrubs
have sacrificed their existence to stem formation, dissolving into bushy
branches of airy greenery. In the asparagus species, lily nature has
transcended itself and entered into the sphere of the air, has developed
"in the air and for the air", whilst onions and leeks, for instance,
incorporate air elements in their hollow fleshy leaves.
Tropical forests provide the habitat for spider plants and Smilax
species (prickly ivy, sarsaparilla); these climb up into the trees, twining or
holding on with tendrils that are lateral leaf organs, with backward curving
spines or similar structures on their stems; or they are hanging plants,
nesting in the branches, sending down long aerial roots.
One might say they are living one floor higher up than our own Liliaceae, in a region full of upward proliferating earth
forces, where they tend to get somewhat out of hand. The flowers with their
beautiful perfume on the other hand become insignificant. In many of these
species, saponins may be found in the bulbous root
stock.
Medicinal plants among the Liliaceae
The medicinal plants of this family show one-sided development, in one
direction or another, of the basic type. As they are strongly flowering plants,
the action is on metabolic processes, chiefly in the lower organization, and
largely follows the paths taken by sulfur in the
body. Digestive activity is stimulated, the liquefied food is made more
accessible to the etheric body and taken over into
anabolic processes, handed over to the part of the astral body that is active
in metabolism, and left to be breathed through, permeated, with the airy
organization. The fluid organization is filled with light and warmth where it
is caught up in morbid congestion, and excess fluid is eliminated. Inflammatory
swellings and watery from exudation in the region of the head and neck have
their plant counter-process and polar opposite in the bulb process, a process
situated between root and leaf. For details of this, see the descriptions of
individual plants.
Congestive growth occurs at first, in the small centre bulb which has
multiplied vegetatively, producing daughter bulbs of
equal size all around itself (the cloves). In spring,
the plant shoots upwards, producing a stem about 75 cm in height,
accompanied by four or five grass-like carinate
leaves. The shoot rapidly develops a loose umbel of flowers. Emerging from an
enveloping leaf that is broad at the base and terminates in a point, this opens
out in summer, with two dozen bulbils revealing the earthy bulb-forming
principle untransformed and unchanged, and between them a few long-stemmed
flowers, white and six-pointed. Garlic thus presents an interesting variation
on the Liliaceae theme. The whole plant is filled
with the persistent, fiery, sulfurous leek smell (aliyl propyl disulphide). It
grows wild in the hot, dry regions of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor.
This plant, which pushes bulb formation right up into the flower, helps
the upper organization to find the right way of acting on the lower
organization, especially the digestive process. With its assistance, the ego
and astral body will break down the food energetically and completely in the
gastrointestinal region, and, owing to the sulfur
processes, the degraded food is well prepared when it is handed over to the etheric body to be imbued with life. Alien astrality, parasitic elements, are thus deprived of a
substrate, and the intestinal flora kept within normal range. Freed from all
foreign elements, the food will not give rise to allergic reactions and
rheumatic processes in the body.
The result is a general improvement in resistance. Correct dosage is
however important with this powerful medicinal herb. It also relieves
intestinal spasms and has a soothing effect, liberating the astral body when it
has become caught up in spasms in the intestinal region.
With the lower processes "put to rights", the upper
organization is relieved of pathological metabolic processes; the fact that
this medicinal plant lives so strongly in bulb formation immediately gives a
dynamic relationship with the region of the head and chest. Chronic bronchial
catarrh, asthma, bronchiectasis, pulmonary emphysema,
and
even gangrene of the lung have been treated with garlic; in this sphere,
too, which as part of the respiratory organization belongs particularly to the
astral body, the effect is
to establish proper astral activity in coordination with the processes
of the fluid, etheric principle. The hypotensive, antisclerotic action
of the plant may be seen in conjunction with this; the intensely "sulfurized" process between root and leaf (bulb
information) counteracts excessive "salt" processes, tendencies to
mineralize and form deposits.
The beneficial action on vascular damage due to nicotine or vitamin D
poisoning may also be ascribed to this.
All-u. ramsons,
broad-leaved garlic
This is a real forest leek. From an elongated bulb grow glossy, green,
broadly elliptical basal leaves and a slender stalk bearing the handsome umbel
of white star-shaped flowers; these develop into trilocular
capsules with black seeds that are carried off by ants. Growing in large
colonies, ramsons fill the forest air with "sulfur".
One the flowering is over, the plant soon dies. This plant, too, has
digestive and anthelminthinc properties; it prevents
metabolic processes from erupting upwards into
the sphere of the nerves and senses. On the other hand it also has an
action on the "upper" organization, benefiting more the lung region,
if there are catarrhal conditions,
as one would expect with a well-developed leaf process.
All-c. onion
In this member of the lily family, too, growth is congestive in the
first year, with bulb formation at root level, and the air-filled, hollow
leaves kept close to the ground.
The following year, the inflorescence shoots upwards, a spherical umbel
removing itself as far from the ground as possible. Allium
cepa also originated in the Orient.
It has aromatic sulfurous elements in all its
parts, a wide variety of "sulfurous"
substances. Other constituents derive from a vitality held down in the plastic,
fluid element: mucilage, inulin, sugars, elements
governing the sugar process (glycokinins),
biocatalysts, vitamin C. Reduced to a pulp, onions give off rays that will
greatly stimulate cell division (Gurwitsch
radiation). Flavone glycosides and substances that
strengthen cardiac activity have also been found in the onion.
The digestive, metabolism-accelerating "sulfurous"
action is again greatly emphasized. The flow of bile is stimulated. In
addition, the whole of the fluid organization is
brought more strongly under the influence of the astral body; diuresis is greatly encouraged, watery congestion, oedemata, exudation into the tissues, are overcome and
removed. The plant, with its bulb formation, also acts on the head and chest
region, reducing inflammatory processes and stimulating the secretion of mucus.
Used externally, as a poultice, onions will reduce inflammatory swelling
(insect bites, paronychia), and on the other hand act
as a derivative skin irritant. These polar spheres
of action are a reflection, in the human organism, of the dynamics of
the onion plant—on the one hand congested in the root region, on the other
energetically exploding into the flowering process.
A native of Mediterranean shores, this plant with its large bulb manages
to live in a salty habitat, in an abundance of light and intense heat. The
perennial bulb, its outer scales
a reddish brown, may reach a diameter of 30 cm. The greater part of it
stands out above the soil. In spring, this enormous, swollen structure sends
forth a slender stem about
a meter high and with a gentle S-curve to it, that terminates in a close
spike of numerous white flowers with crimson stripes; these emerge laterally.
When the flowering is over, the bulb produces a head of leaves the length of a
span.
The plant was well known for its medicinal virtues to the ancient
Egyptians. It was given the name "eye of Typhon"
in antiquity. The onion-type action is greatly enhanced in the squill, with digitalis-like steroid glycosides (scillarin A and scillarin B)
produced in addition to the volatile sulphureous
compounds common to these plants. Medicinal preparations made from the fleshy
inner scales have a powerful action on the fluid organism, where they bring
about the energetic elimination of pathological cumulations
of fluid, when the fluid has withdrawn from the sphere of action of the etheric organization to become "dead water". The
astral body will come in strongly, squeezing out
the fluid, as it were (action in cases of dropsy, ascites,
anasarca, and also the watery inflammatory effusions
of pleurisy). Inflammatory processes in the region of the bladder and kidneys
respond well to the drug. On the other hand there is also an action on the
region of the head and chest in cases of chronic bronchitis and of asthma in
the elderly. Plants showing this kind of tension between etheric
and astral processes always have an action on the rhythmic system, for a
rhythmic equilibrium is constantly re-established between these processes.
These plants act on the heart and on respiration. In the squill,
the rapid transition from congested etheric processes
to the unleashing of flowering processes governed by astral principles occurs
in spring, the season of rhythm. It is only after the upward elimination of its
flowering nature that the plant enters into proper leaf formation (always kept
close to the bulb).
The crushed leaves have been used externally to treat wounds, burns, and
suppurative inflammatory processes (boils, paronychia), in the same way as with other members of the
lily family that we have described.
Having made ourselves familiar with the life and growth patterns of the
family type and a number of Liliaceae, we find, as we
come to consider Colchicum, that this plant shows distinctive anti-tendencies.
As it comes into flower, the vital powers of the year are declining, with plant
life withdrawing into root and seed. The meadow saffron flower thus stays at
the level of the corm; the flowering process is pushed right down into the
subterranean sphere, the upper forced down upon the under, without the
mediating rhythmical middle, the leaf principle. The life rhythm of this plant
resists the normal rhythm of life. The "rocketing growth" of Liliaceae coming into flower, leaving behind and beneath
all that is leaf and root, free to rise into the upper regions, here remains
caught up in the congestive sphere of the corm. After pollination, the
microspores germinating on the stigma take many weeks to reach the ovules in
the ovary situated on the corm below; "fertilization" occurs only at
around Christmas; the seeds are formed
in the sphere not of summery but of wintry forces. In spring, when all
"normal" plant life goes into flowering, the infructescence
arises, with its dark seed capsule, and it is at that time, too, that the
leaves finally appear, to produce the new corm which will bear flowers in the
autumn. During the summer, the plant stays quiescent beneath the ground. Spring
and autumn, summer and winter have changed places for the meadow saffron.
It is not surprising that a plant like this is highly poisonous. The
"anti tendencies" of the meadow saffron produce the poison. It is
evident to the eye that the astral is coming
in much too strongly. Colchicine, the alkaloid
found in every part of the plant and most of all in the seed, is the most
powerful mitotic poison known to man. It inhibits the stages preceding cell
division and multiplication. Seeds treated with colchicine
get completely out of hand etherically, with their
formative forces cut off, in a sense, from the spiritual form principle;
erratic mutations occur, of a type seen normally only as the result of an
extreme provocation such as X-ray or radium treatment.
The medicinal actions of Colchicum do follow the lily theme, but in
greatly metamorphosed form. Vomiting and diarrhea,
dropsy, scarlatina) nephritis and uric acid diathesis
are treated with Colchicum. The astral body is encouraged to act more strongly
on the lower organization, and particularly its eliminatory processes. On the
other hand, a powerful action is to be expected in the region between head and
chest, in line with the development of a corm in the plant. This action can be
utilized particularly if there
are "anti-tendencies" to normal form processes in the upper
organization, a tendency to form deposits, to harden or form tumors in that region, and especially a tendency to
hyperplasia of the thyroid. Rudolf Steiner suggested the use of preparations
made from the flowering corm for the treatment of goitre, describing how this
condition is due
to "atony of the astral body",
causing the ego organization to be pushed back by the physical and etheric bodies. Cochicum acts as
a powerful stimulant for the part of the astral body which is active in the
region of the larynx. Thyroid activity, of great importance in many metabolic
processes (as may be seen from its effect on basal metabolism), is spurred on
by increased activity of the astral body. (Bearing its flowering process within
itself, the meadow saffron corm is particularly well suited to the task of
stimulating thryoid activity and guiding it towards
metabolism.) R.S. has also recommended the use of Colchicum roots as a remedy
for inflammatory and proliferative processes affecting the meninges.
The action of Colchicum preparations on gouty and rheumatic conditions,
particularly in the joints, also relates clearly to what has been said above.
The reader is advised to compare the description given above with that of Mandragora.
**) Botanically, snowdrops, daffodils and narcissi belong to a closely
related family, the Amaryllidaceae; their growth pattern
is the same, as the lily process presented here, so they are included in this
description.
Liliaceae existence therefore swings to and
fro between mercury and sulfur principles. Salt, the
earth processes, have little part in it.
Vorwort/Suchen
Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum