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Staggerbush

Scientific Names

• Lyonia mariana L.
• Heath family

Parts Usually Used

Leaves
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Description of Plant(s) and Culture

Slender, deciduous shrub; to 7 feet in height. Leaves thin, oblong to oval. White or pinkish flowers in umbel-like racemes, in clusters on old leafless branches; April to June.
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Where Found

Sandy, acid pine thickets. Southern Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York to Florida, eastern Texas to Arkansas.
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Legends, Myths and Stories

Benjamin Smith Barton, in his classic Essay Towards a Materia Medica of the United States (1801), wrote that leaf tea was used as wash of “disagreeable ulceration of the feet, which is not uncommon” in the southern states.
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Uses

Cherokee Indians used leaf tea externally for itching, ulcers.
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Warning

Poisonous. Produces “staggers” in livestock, hence the common name.

Use with medical supervision only
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Bibliography

Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants, by Steven Foster and James A. Duke., Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000

Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Victoria Neufeldt, Editor in Chief, New World Dictionaries: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023, 1984

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