Peucedanum officinale L. - Apiaceae - hog's fennel, sulphurweed, Arznei-Haarstrang, Echter Haarstrang, Rossfenchel, Schwefelwurz

Perennial herb, up to 2m tall, native to Europe; leaves linear; flowers yellow.
[Peucedanum officinale L., Randall R.E., Thornton G., Journal of Ecology, Vol.84(3), 1996, 475-485]
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2261209?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

„The thick root has a strong odour of sulphur - hence one of the other popular names of the plant, Sulphurwort, and when wounded in the spring, yields a considerable quantity of a yellowish-green juice, which dries into a gummy resin and retains the strong scent of the root.“
[A Modern Herbal: The Medicinal, Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties, Cultivation and Folklore of Herbs, Grasses, Fungi, Shrubs and Trees with All Their Modern Scientific Uses. Vol.2, Grieve, M., 1931] https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/f/fenhog05.html

„This harvesting technique,and the product so obtained, very much recall those of two other medicinal umbellifers: Ferula assa-foetida and Dorema ammoniacum.“ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peucedanum_officinale

The dried roots (Radix Peucedani, Radix Foeniculi porcini) own a disgusting smell and salty bitter taste. They contain essential oil (0.2%, bad smell), peucedanin (2-2.5%), and oxypeucedanin (0.3-0.5%). Used formerly in folk medicine as diuretic and to treat malaria, catarrh and gonorrhea.
[Hagers Handbuch der Pharmazeutischen Praxis, Springer 2010]

„The volatile constituents of Peucedanum officinale L were isolated by hydrodistillation and the essential oil were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Thirty-eight compounds representing 98.7% of the oil in leaf were identifed, of which fenchone (27.7%), (E)-β-ocimene (18.7%) and β-pinene (8.1%) were major. Twenty-two compounds representing 99.7% of the oil in the seeds were identifed, of which fenchone (32%), (E)-β-ocimene (17.8%), and (Z)-β-ocimene (9.4%) were major.“
[Chemical constituents of the leaf and seed oils of Peucedanum officinale L. cultivated in Iran., Jaimand, K., Ashorabadi, E.S., Dini, M., Journal of Essential Oil Research, 18(6), 2006, 670-671]

The essential oil of the rhizome of P.officinale contained limonene (28.2%) and α-pinene (28.1%) as main constituents. α-Pinene (24.8%), β-pinene (17.6%), limonene (11.3%) and myrcene (9.5%) were the major compounds found in the volatile oil of the leaves.
[Composition of Essential Oils of Flowers, Leaves, Stems and Rhizome of Peucedanum officinale L.(Apiaceae)., Petrovic, S., Maksimovic, Z., Gorunovic, M., J Essent Oil Res, 21(2), 2009, 123-126]

Main component of the essential oil from flowering plants of P.officinale collected in Greece was bornyl acetate (81.1%).
[Essential oils of Umbelliferae (Apiaceae) family taxa as emerging potent agents for mosquito control., Evergetis, E., Michaelakis, A.N., Haroutounian, S.A., InTech, 2012, 613-638]

peucedanum_officinale_fuchs.jpg
Fuchs,L., New Kreüterbuch, t.349 (1543)
http://plantgenera.org/species.php?id_species=773042


Peucedanum officinale, CC BY-SA 3.0, Author: Andreas Kraska