Marrubium vulgare L. - Lamiaceae - common horehound, white horehound, Gemeiner Andorn, Gewöhnlicher Andorn

Perennial herb, 30-80cm high, native to the Mediterranean region, naturalized elsewhere; leaves ovate to circular, margin dentate-serrate; flowers white.

„In Central Europe the species is a archaeophyte from the formerly popular medicinal plant cultivation and also naturalized in warmer regions. Stable deposits ranging to southern Sweden and into southern Scotland.“
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gew%C3%B6hnlicher_Andorn

„The Roman agricultural writer Columella lists it as a remedy for expelling worms in farm animals in his important first-century work On Agriculture. Since then, horehound has appeared for similar purposes in numerous herbals over the centuries…“ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrubium_vulgare

Twelve components were identified in essential oil obtained from the flowering aerial parts of M. vulgare, with β-caryophyllene (45.8%) and germacrene D (14.4%) as major constituents.
[Comparison of Essential Oils from Marrubium vulgare L. and M. peregrinum L. Nagy, M., Svajdlenka, E., Journal of Essential Oil Research, Vol.10(5), 1998, 585-587]

The essential oil obtained from the dried flowering aerial parts of Marrubium vulgare L. (Labiatae) growing in Iran was analyzed by GC and GC-MS. „Twenty components have been identified in the essential oil of M. vulgare. The major constituents of the essential oil were β-bisabolene (20.4%), δ-cadinene (19.1%) and isocaryophyllene (14.1%).“
[The essential oil composition of Marrubium vulgare L. from Iran. Morteza-Semnani, K., Saeedi, M., Babanezhad, E., Journal of Essential Oil Research, Vol.20(6), 2008, 488-490]

Main components of the essential oil obtained from plants growing in Tunesia were γ-eudesmol (11.9%), β-citronellol (9.9%), citronellylformate (9.5%) and germacrene D (9.3%).
[The in-vitro evaluation of antibacterial, antifungal and cytotoxic properties of Marrubium vulgare L. essential oil grown in Tunisia. Zarai, Z., Kadri, A., Ben Chobba, I., Ben Mansour, R., Bekir, A., Mejdoub, H., Gharsallah, N., Lipids Health Dis, 10, Vol., 2011, 161]

„Crude extracts of the aerial parts of Marrubium vulgare show a potent invitro inhibition of KCl-induced contraction of rat aorta. Bio-guided fractionations, spectroscopic analysis and chemical derivatization revealed the furanic labdane diterpenes marrubenol and marrubiin as the most active compounds.
Marrubenol and marrubiin inhibited the aortic contraction in a concentration-dependent manner. Marrubenol was slightly more potent than marrubiin. Both compounds were significantly less potent than verapamil. The presence of marrubiin and marrubenol may at least in part justify the vasorelaxant activity of aqueous extract of M.vulgare.“
[The vasorelaxant activity of marrubenol and marrubiin from Marrubium vulgare. El Bardai, S., Morel, N., Wibo, M., Fabre, N., Llabres, G., Lyoussi, B., Quetin-Leclercq, J., Planta medica, Vol.69(1), 2003, 75-76]
http://www.farm.ucl.ac.be/Full-texts-FARM/Elbardai-2003-1.pdf

Marrubenol obtained from M.vulgare extract inhibits smooth muscle contraction by blocking L-type calcium channels in rat heart.
[Characterisation of marrubenol, a diterpene extracted from Marrubium vulgare, as an L‐type calcium channel blocker. El Bardai, S., Wibo, M., Hamaide, M. C., Lyoussi, B., Quetin‐Leclercq, J., Morel, N., British journal of pharmacology, Vol.140(7), 2003, 1211-1216]

„…marrubiin is the most active diterpenoid responsible for the therapeutic properties observed from the species Leonotis leonurus, Phlomis bracteosa, Marrubium deserti de Noe, Marrubium vulgare, Marrubium alysson and Marrubium thessalum. Extensive pharmacological studies have demonstrated that marrubiin displays a suite of activities inclusing antinociceptive, antioxidant, antigenotoxic, cardioprotective, vasorelaxant, gastroprotective, antispasmodic, immunomodulating, antioedematogenic, analgesic, and antidiabetic properties.“ [Marrubiin., Popoola, O.K., Elbagory, A.M., Ameer, F., Hussein, A.A., Molecules, 18(8), 2013, 9049-9060] http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/18/8/9049/htm

Köhler,F.E., Medizinal Pflanzen, vol.2 t.128 (1890)
http://plantgenera.org/species.php?id_species=644622

Marrubium vulgare, Rosarium Sangerhausen 2017, CC BY-SA 3.0, Author: Andreas Kraska