Scrophularia buergeriana Seeds | Buerger Figwort
LATIN NAME: Scrophularia buergeriana
COMMON NAME: Buerger Figwort
Plant Profile
The flowers of Scrophularia are small, two-lipped and pitcher-shaped, greenish outside and marked with purple or reddish-brown within. The lower lip folds back as a landing platform, the mouth is narrow, and the stamens and style are held inside the urn. Wasps crawl in to reach the nectar at the base of the tube and brush the anthers on the way, so pollen rides on the head and thorax to the next flower.
The plant is a tall herbaceous perennial that dies down each winter and returns from a fleshy root. Its stems are four-angled, unlike those of most meadow neighbours, and they branch towards the top into an open panicle of small flowers. The leaves stand in opposite pairs, ovate and coarsely toothed, with the upper ones narrower than the lower. In the wild it favours ground that is damp at the root but not underwater: stream banks, ditches and the edges of woods.
Opposite leaves and a square stem are the combination that leads people to reach for the mint family, but there is no aromatic oil here; the figworts are unrelated and are separated by their flower structure and by a root that is bitter rather than fragrant.
The dried root is sliced and simmered in decoctions in east Asian practice, usually in company with other roots, and it is bitter enough to need that company. In the garden the plant is grown for damp shade and for its late-summer flowers, which are worth having for the wasps alone: a figwort in a border will hold a wasp’s attention for a whole warm afternoon.
Science & Biotechnology
The specific epithet honours Heinrich Buerger, a German botanist and collector who worked in Japan in the nineteenth century and whose material was studied in Europe alongside the rest of the Japanese flora then arriving from Dutch and German collectors. Miquel, working on that material, described the plant and named it for him, a common pattern in Japanese botany of the period: a local plant given a European name by a European who never saw it growing.
The root of a figwort is a store of iridoid glycosides, the bitter monoterpene-derived compounds that characterise the family. In this genus the main ones are aucubin and catalpol, with harpagoside in the root tissues, alongside phenylpropanoid glycosides such as acteoside. They are the reason the root tastes harsh and the reason the genus sits in pharmacology research, since aucubin and catalpol are widely studied defensive compounds and harpagoside has been pursued as an anti-inflammatory marker.
Acteoside, also written verbascoside, is a caffeoyl phenylethanoid glycoside found across the family. It is one of the compounds an analyst looks for when profiling a batch of figwort root, together with the iridoids.
Because the root is slow to grow and variable from seed, laboratories have worked on cultured tissue as a source of the iridoids. Shoot cultures of Scrophularia established from nodal explants multiply and can be maintained indefinitely, and callus and cell suspensions have been used to follow how iridoid content responds to light, sugar level and added precursors.
Uses & Benefits
The Chinese figwort is the better-known member of the genus and the one grown as a drug crop: a larger, coarser plant with broader leaves and bigger flowers, and it is that species rather than this one that dominates the medicinal root trade in China. Scrophularia buergeriana is its northern relative, a plant of Japan, Korea and the colder parts of northeastern China, and its root has been collected alongside the Chinese material as a regional substitute.
Growing from Seed
The seed is small and light, so sow it on the surface of a moist, humus-rich compost and press it in without covering it, then keep the pan in the light under glass or in a cool frame. Water from below to avoid washing the seed into the base of the pan.
Prick seedlings out when they have two to four true leaves and grow them in pots until the root has filled the space, then plant out 40 to 60 centimetres apart in a soil that holds moisture, in light shade or morning sun. Cut the plant back after flowering to prevent heavy self-seeding, and clear old stems in late winter. Slugs are the main trouble with young plants; a mature root shakes them off.
Our Take
Figworts are a quiet pleasure, and the best way to see what the genus offers is to grow the Chinese figwort (Scrophularia ningpoensis) beside this one and compare the two in flower. For similar damp-ground architecture, the common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) makes the family’s statement version, while the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) sat among the figworts in older classifications.
Related Reading
More species in the same orbit as Buerger Figwort: