Some plants feel ancient the moment you meet them, and butterbur is one of them. With its giant, umbrella-like leaves and thick, creeping rhizomes, butterbur (Petasites spp.) looks like a plant that remembers the world before we paved it.
The genus Petasites belongs to the daisy family (Asteraceae) and includes 19 widely accepted species. Petasites hybridus, the species at the center of much of the modern clinical research, can grow up to a meter tall and tends to make itself at home in wet, marshy ground, damp forests, and along rivers and streams (Kulinowski et al., 2022).
Butterbur has also made its way into modern clinical research through standardized extracts. Tesalin® Ze 339 is a P. hybridus leaf extract developed for allergic rhinitis, while Petadolex® was a root extract used in migraine research and treatment. Both were standardized for petasins, a group of sesquiterpenes considered among the major pharmacologically active constituents of P. hybridus (Kulinowski et al., 2022). …
