Dosage

Intervention: 5 to 10 drops per day.
Treatment: 10-15 drops, 3 times per day max.

Directions for use

Shake before using. Take directly on the tongue or in a half glass of water or tea, 15 to 30 minutes
before meals. For long-term treatment, use 6 days out of 7.

Mode of Action

Chemical analysis of different Cistus species’ tissues showed different chemical classes, including diterpenes, which are usually detected in Cistus monspeliensis L. and Cistus libanotis L. . These plants are also recognized to contain multiple compounds from different chemical classes such as flavonoids, coumarins, terpene derivatives, hydrocarbons . Many studies have reported on the phytochemicals in extracts of different Cistus species from several regions. The first study on the Cistus genus, published by R. Hegnauer, determined the constitution of diterpenes in the aerial parts of C. monspeliensis . A few years later, this genus started to interest researchers. JDP Teresa focused studies on the aerial parts of Cistus laurifolius L. growing in Spain, from which new terpenes were isolated: salmantic acid and its methyl ester, salmantidiol , also the labdane-type diterpene 6β,8-dihydroxy-ent-13E-labden-15-oic acid (laurifolic acid). Studies continued from 1990 to 2000, focusing on diterpenes by studying others species, especially Cistus creticus subsp. creticus L. from Greece, from which several labdane-type diterpenes were identified. The Essential Oil (EO) of Cistus species is widely studied, especially Cistus creticus L., Cistus ladaniferus L., and C. monspeliensis. Manoyl oxide isomers and 13-epi-manoyl oxide were the most reported diterpenes in C. monspeliensis  as well as sesquiterpene oxygenated (α-cadinol as the main compound) isolated in France from leaves. C. monspeliensisis is also known to have a high content of terpenoids. Aerial parts of C. ladaniferus are another example of the richness in terpenoids (oxygenated sesquiterpenes and monoterpene hydrocarbons) among them, viridiflorol, α-pinene, ledol, bornyl acetate . A chemoprofile of C. creticus was highly variable due to the variance of subsp., geographic regions, and then pedoclimatic conditions due to seasonal variations. Three classes were identified: phenylpropanoids (carvacrol) , carbonylic compounds (norisoprenoids representing by vitispirane I ), and terpenes. The latter were the most reported in this species’s oil, especially diterpene in C. creticus subsp. creticus. The most reported diterpene were manoyl oxide, 13-epi-manoyl oxide, drimane-7,9 , diene, and labdane skeletons , and sesquiterpene (α-cadinene, δ-cadinene) which are predominant in Cistus creticus subsp. Eriocephalus Viv. . Cistus albidus L. was also studied for its EO composition. Conversely, in this EO diterpenes and monoterpenes were absent. Sesquiterpene derivatives were dominant with high content, the main components being α-zingiberene, α-curcumene, (E)-β-caryophyllene, α-cadinol, α-bisabolol, δ-cadinene, and germacrene D . A study carried out on 15 types of Cistus salviifolius L. from the Crete island showed 167 compounds dominated with high percentages of sesquiterpenes (Camphor and viridiflorol as main compounds) . Another study on the EO composition of 5 Cistus species, including salviifolius, showed 89 components dominated by sesquiterpenes (oxygenated ones were higher than hydrocarbons represented especially by germacrene D as a leading compound, this latter was absent in EO from Crete island). Diterpenes were also present among the EO of C. libanotis and Cistus villosus L. from Tunisia, 56 and 54 elements were isolated respectively, monoterpenes hydrocarbons characterized the first species. However, the second major class of compounds was carbonylic compounds (undecan-2-one and hexahydrofarnesylacetone were the most abundant) and hydrocarbon (heptacosane and nonacosane as principal ones).
Helpful Associations

Chaga Extrtact (available at Blissdorf)

Reishi Extract (available at Blissdorf)

Cat´s Claw extract (available at Blissdorf)

Rosmary, Sage, Thymian, Immortelle

Ethnobotany

This plant is an aromatic, expectorant, stimulant herb that controls bleeding and has antibiotic effects. It is used internally in the treatment of catarrh and diarrhoea and as an emmenagogue, potential treatment for Lyme desease. At present, patients suffering from persistent borreliosis in Saxonian self-help groups have found Cistus creticus L. preparations such as tea infusions and nutraceuticals (aqueous dry extract in capsules) to improve their clinical conditions (for detailed information see Hückel and Rauwald 2009).

History

Cistus creticus, or the Cretan rockrose, is a hardy shrub that grows in poor soils and harsh conditions. Glandular hairs on the surface of the leaves exude a resin, labdanum or ladanum (not to be confused with laudanum, an opiate) that contains more than 300 chemical compounds, with unique aromatic and medicinal properties. The two fascinating methods of harvesting labdanum in the southeastern Mediterranean were documented as early as 2500 years ago by the Greek historian Herodotus. The more unusual source was goat beards, where the resin coagulated while the animals grazed. A specimen of goat’s hair with labdanum attached is in the Economic Botany Collection at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The other method was by means of a bow-shaped instrument with straps—called ladanisterion—that was combed through the bushes to collect the resin, which was then scraped off and formed into lumps. Villagers in northern Crete today still rely on this tool to harvest labdanum.
The resin has been used since Biblical times as incense, in perfumes and cosmetics, and as a salve for many diseases. The Greek writer Dioscorides, whose De materia medica (written between about 50-70 CE) was the most important pharmacological work in Europe and Middle East for the next sixteen centuries, described labdanum’s medicinal use as a diuretic, a remedy against earache, for expelling afterbirth, treating tumors in the womb, and as a pain-reliever, cough medicine and warm compress. In the medieval period, we encounter labdanum in Byzantium, Italy, and northwest Europe “as an ingredient of medical preparations and perfumes.” In later centuries, Crete became a locus of pilgrimage for European naturalists seeking to witness with their own eyes the botanical riches recorded in the ancient sources. Their accounts refer time and again to the wondrous Cretan rockrose. Pierre Belon visited Crete, then a Venetian colony, in 1548 and described the laborious resin collection under the hot sun. Bernard Randolph, in his 1687 The Present State of the Islands in the Archipelago, wrote of a drug called by the Venetians “oldani” that was bought by them and sent to Venice. The French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort was accused of spying by the Turkish authorities for trying to observe the harvest of the precious substance during his 1700 visit to the island. He nevertheless succeeded, and his description in turn guided the footsteps of English botanist Robert Sibthorp a few decades later. Sibthorp’s Flora Graeca (1806-1840), held in the Dumbarton Oaks rare book collection, includes a magnificent hand-colored image of the plant’s ruffled beauty.

The Cretan rockrose seems to have faded into obscurity in Europe as a medicinal plant in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, following the Ottoman conquest of Crete in the late seventeenth century, but continued to be valued on its native island. The plant’s long entanglement with local communities is preserved in online documentaries, oral histories, and school projects. Past and present are woven together in the enduring use of labdanum in home remedies for children’s colds and tummy aches, as a culinary ingredient, as protection from the “evil eye,” and as one of dozens of herbal and medicinal compounds used in the preparation of the holy chrism for baptisms and the sanctification of new churches. In these living traditions, the accrued ritual, spiritual, and healing significance of the plant is perpetuated. The millennia-old medicinal lore surrounding the healing properties of Cistus creticus is now attracting renewed attention as science turns to traditional knowledge and uses of plants to discover effective compounds again disease. A recent scientific paper from Germany concluded that “the application of C. creticus preparations by Lyme disease self-help groups may be considered as a reasonable therapy approach.” A 2020 article in Journal of Ethnopharmacology describes direct in vitro antiviral activity of Cistus creticus against dengue fever, and a 2021 review of Cistus species used in traditional Mediterranean medicine summarizes the evidence of their antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties.

Contra-Indications

None to provide
Interactions

None to provide