The Garden Beast team always aims to offer clear and concise information that will get you set up to grow and care for every plant you’re interested in, as well as to learn a little more about it. This particular species is a bit of a riddle, however. This hairy biennial, which produces beautiful lavender-purple flowers, is most commonly known as stavesacre in English.
Its other common name, lice-bane, is a reference to the fact that the seeds of this plant used to be crushed and sprinkled around as a remedy against lice. For the same reason, the plant is also sometimes called lousewort, a name it shares with a few other plant species.
Stavesacre carried the scientific name Delphinium staphisagria until fairly recently. The genus Delphinium, which falls into the Ranunculaceae (buttercup) botanical family, used to count around 300 different species, including the flowering plant we’re looking at right now.
Modern botanists have access to tools their forebears, who relied on physical characteristics more than anything, did not, though — and DNA analysis revealed that stavesacre should not be included in the Delphinium genus any longer, along with many more species that previously fell into this genus.
The plant was instead transferred to the Staphisagria genus, which belongs to the Ranunculaceae family as well. Because the rules surrounding the naming of plants ban botanists from using the same word twice, and the new genus designation would have resulted in Staphisagria staphisagria, this plant had to be renamed altogether. The resulting Staphisagria macrosperma is a reference to the plant’s unusually large seeds.
To confuse things even further, the ancient Greeks called this plant staphis agria, which means wild raisin. This name is a reference to the shriveled shape of the seedpods that stavesacre produces, and which indeed resemble very small raisins.
Commonly used as a homeopathic remedy, stavesacre-based tinctures can still be found under the name “Delphinium“. If you are interested in growing this stunning flowering plant in your garden, you’ll soon discover that their seeds are extremely hard to come by — certainly partially because of the confusion around its name!
Despite its use in herbal medicine, however, all parts of stavesacre are also toxic to many living beings (hence its success as a louse remedy), which goes a long way toward explaining why it is so difficult to find stavesacre for sale, too.
About Stavesacre
- Stavesacre, Staphisagria macrosperma, is a thickly-stemmed and low-growing perennial with large palmate leaves and beautiful purple flowers.
- This plant is native to southern Europe, where it naturally grows along rocky areas, in wastelands with poor soil types that make it unattractive to farmers, and around the edges of agricultural fields. Stavesacre can be found in Spain, Portugal, Malta, Croatia, Syria, Lebanon, and Morocco, among other countries. This plant can successfully be grown in a wide variety of soil types in climates with hot summers and mild winters, though.
- Stavesacre is, in a modern context, most famous as a homeopathic remedy. The poisonous plant is used to treat many different ailments, ranging from cuts and scrapes to anxiety, tooth pain, digestive-system disorders, and problems with the urinary tract. There is no scientific evidence to support the efficacy of the plant in treating any of these ailments.
- The poisonous properties of stavesacre have been well-known for over two thousand years, with various healers sending out strong warnings that consuming any part of the plant, in any setting, is extremely risky and can lead to death. This is precisely why the plant’s large seeds were used as a remedy against lice and other parasites, who also suffer from the poisonous effects of the “lice-bane”.
- It will come as no surprise, then, that stavescare is also poisonous to pets that include cats, dogs, and horses, as well as to livestock such as sheep, cows, and goats.
- Upon ingesting any part of the plant, a person will first feel excited and ecstatic (which is perhaps why it is known as an anxiety remedy in a highly diluted form), only to become depressed, to experience nerve pain, and to become paralyzed — and after that, quite possibly, to die. Although there is no doubt that stavesacre is a beautiful plant that produces wonderful blooms with striking stamens and seeds, you will not want to keep lice-bane around in a typical garden. Stavesacre should be kept away from people and pets who might be tempted to munch on it.
Stavesacre Features: An Overview
- Stavesacre is a hardy perennial or biennial with thick green stems and an upright growth habit.
- Stavesacre can grow to be just over three feet (one meter) tall, and has a very modest spread, but this plant prefers to grow in dense clusters in the companionship of other Staphisagria macrosperma Despite that fact, it is not considered to be weedy or invasive.
- Lice-bane’s deep green palmate and lobed basal leaves can be as long and wide as six inches (15 centimeters), and broadly resembles those of the cannabis plant. The leaves are hairy and quite abundant.
- Stavesacre blooms for a long time, allowing gardeners who are brave enough to add this beautiful but highly-poisonous plant to their green space to enjoy blue to purple flowers with fresh green accents near the tips (or sometimes nearly white flowers with gentle purple accents) from May to August. The flowers have five petals and prominent long stamens. Numerous flowers will grow all along Staphisagria macrosperma‘s long sturdy stem, in dense and alternating clusters.
- The seed pods that emerge from the blooms have a stunning deep burgundy color and are angular and flat in shape. Each seed pod can contain between two and three stavesacre seeds.
- Once the seeds are ready, lice-bane’s petals will begin to wilt, after which the entire plant perishes to make space for a brand new growth cycle.
- Because stavesacre is toxic to so many different animal species, most pests will stay well away from lice-bane, and this plant is resistant to most diseases.
- Should you be interested in growing Staphisagria macrosperma in your garden, it is best to choose a secluded space — where nobody will come to harm as a result of contact with the plant.
Growing Stavesacre
Stavesacre is a flowering plant that is native to southern Europe and northern Africa, and as such, it prefers warm and dry summers and milder winters. Staphisagria macrosperma absolutely requires full sun — at least six hours of direct sun exposure, and ideally even more — to thrive.
It will immediately begin to protest if planted in a shady location, and does not cope well with partial shade or dappled sun, either. These plants prefer temperatures between 59 and 86 °F (15 and 30 °C).
While Staphisagria macrosperma is extremely picky about its lighting, the plant can grow in a variety of soil conditions. Stavesacre is often found in nutrient poor soils, and can be planted in sandy, loamy, and clay soils.
It can grow in slightly acidic, neutral, or mildly alkaline soils but dislikes extremes. Because stavesacre is able to tolerate moist conditions very well, your soil does not have to be especially well-draining for this plant to succeed in your garden.
Due to the poisonous nature of the plant, novice gardeners who have no previous experience with growing and caring for dangerous plants are essentially advised to choose some altogether more benign wildflowers for their gardens — lavender, lady’s mantle, ground elder, and cow parsley are all examples of far safer options.
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Should you want to sow stavesacre in your garden, however, you would be advised not to prune the plant, or to interact with it very closely.
This plant is notorious for growing very well in poor soil types, and therefore does not need to be fed any type of fertilizer — if you were to add any type of fertilizer to its soil, it may in fact die.
Watering Stavesacre
Staphisagria macrosperma is one of those rare plants that prefer moister soil conditions, and it will not mind being planted in a condition with poorly draining soil. If you do live in a dry climate, stavesacre will thank you if you offer it regular supplemental watering, which will keep the soil evenly moist all the time. Are you too scared to go anywhere near the plant to water it? You could consider investigating in an irrigation system that will take care of the job for you.
New seedlings require constant moisture and should be watered regularly to keep the soil humid, which will support their germination process and help your stavesacre to grow into a strong and healthy plant. Note, though, that the flowers will be just as abundant, big, and vibrant if they succeed despite periods of drought.
Propagating Stavesacre
The rare gardeners who have already sowed Staphisagria macrosperma in their gardens are lucky, in that they will not have to worry about propagating these gorgeous but potentially deadly flowering plants. Stavesacre reseeds itself; after the plant’s bloom period ends, around August in its native growing zones, the plant’s seed pods will detach themselves. New lice-bane plants will grow from these seeds without any intervention on the gardener’s part.
If you would like to begin growing lice-bane in your garden, it is best to look around for seeds online. Stavesacre seed pods have a hardy outer shell, which makes storing them for prolonged periods at room temperature very feasible. Once you acquire a seed package, follow along with these steps to begin growing stavesacre in your garden:
- Decide on a suitable location for stavesacre — plant Staphisagria macrosperma seeds in a location where they can receive as much sun as possible, but also where they will be sheltered from children, pets, and people who may not recognize the poisonous properties of the plant, and will want to pick some flowers.
- Don garden gloves.
- When it comes to starting Staphisagria macrosperma from seed, you have two different options. It is optimal to sow the seeds directly into your garden, which can be done during the early to mid-spring period, at temperatures between 59 and 68 °F (15 to 20 °C). You can also start your stavesacre out in a pot, in which case a sand and perlite mixture makes for a good potting medium, and you can start the process in late winter to transplant stavesacre to your garden in the spring, once it has germinated.
- To sow the seeds, use a toothpick to make a small hole, and place your Staphisagria macrosperma seeds in the hole. Gently tap the soil down and mist the seed with water.
- The seeds will begin to germinate in a few weeks. Continue to support your young stavesacre seedlings with plenty of water, and ensure that the soil remains evenly moist.
If you would like to share lice-bane seeds with a friend or relative, you can harvest the mature seed pods from the stamens just before they are about to drop off the plant.
You would be advised to wear garden gloves for the purpose, and to slide the seeds into a Ziploc bag, after which they may be stored at room temperature. You can advise the recipient of your seed packet to follow the same steps described above, and they will soon have stavesacre growing in their own garden!
In Conclusion
Whatever you want to call this plant — Staphisagria macrosperma, Delphinium staphisagria, lice-bane, lousewort, staphis agria, or stavesacre — it is clear that this plant is not one most gardeners would want to introduce to their gardens. Ingesting any part of the plant, including its stems, leaves, flowers, stamens, and seeds, can instantly create a medical emergency if you don’t know what you are doing. Despite that obvious disadvantage, stavesacre is a beautiful plant that blooms for a long time, and can certainly brighten your garden up. In addition, lice-bane is a wonderful choice for courageous gardeners who are especially looking for plants that are able to thrive in extremely poor soil conditions.
