Back to the page
  • Welcome
  • Visit us
    • Visit us
    • Opening times & information
    • Visiting the Garden
    • Ticket Prices
    • Garden map
    • Group Visits
    • Tours
    • Press and photography
    • The Garden Cafe
    • The Garden Shop
  • Accessibility
  • What’s on
  • The Garden
    • The Garden
    • About the Garden
    • Horticultural Collections
    • Understanding Plant Labels
    • History of the Garden
    • Wildlife
    • Plant picks of the week
  • Learning
    • Learning
    • Adult Learning
    • Trails for Adults
    • Schools, Further and Higher Education
    • Family Activities
    • Community Projects
    • Science on Sundays
  • Science
    • Science
    • Our Science Staff
    • Our Staff Publications
    • Your Science
    • Supporting Your Research
  • Collections
    • Collections
    • Living Collections
    • Seed Bank
    • Herbarium
    • Cory Library
    • Archives
    • Living Collections Portal
  • News
  • Support Us
Donate

Lorem ipsum testing

Cambridge University Botanic Garden
menu

Today's Opening Times:
10:00am - 6:00pm

  • News
  • Support Us
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
  • Home
  • Visit us
    • Ticket Prices
    • Opening times & Information
    • Visiting the Garden
    • Garden Map
    • Group Visits
    • Tours
    • Pre-book tickets
    • Press & Photography
    • The Garden Shop
    • The Garden Cafe
    • Accessibility
    • Virtual Visits
  • What’s on
  • The Garden
    • About the Garden
    • Horticultural Collections
    • Understanding Plant Labels
    • History of the Garden
    • Wildlife
    • Plant picks of the week
  • Learning
    • Adult Learning
    • Trails for Adults
    • Schools, Further & Higher Education
    • Family Activities
    • Community Projects
    • Science on Sundays
    • Gardening Club
    • Book a Learning Visit
    • Festival of Plants 2020
    • Cambridge Festival 2021
  • Science
    • Our Science Staff
    • Our Staff Publications
    • Your Science
    • Supported Publications
    • Supporting Your Research
  • Collections
    • Living Collections
    • Herbarium
    • Seed Bank
    • Cory Library
    • Archives
    • Collecting Expeditions
    • National Plant Collections ®
    • Living Collections Portal
  • Wellness Wanders
  • Open search panel
Close search panel
Birthwort, Aristolochia
Home Plants Aristolochia clematitis
Share Created with Sketch.
  • Email Share this with Email
  • Facebook Share this with Facebook
  • Twitter Share this with Twitter
  • Pinterest Share this with Pinterest
  • WhatsApp Share this with WhatsApp
  • Google + Share this with Google plus

Aristolochia clematitis

View all plants

A donut-shaped bed on Systematics is currently overflowing with European birthwort, Aristolochia clematitis, a hardy cousin of the tropical Dutchman’s pipes.  The heart-shaped somewhat bluey-green leaves are alternately arranged up the twining stems, which are decorated with clusters of pale yellow, curiously S-shaped flowers with elongated hoods.

Richard Mabey in his Flora Britannica is, as ever, illuminating on what he describes as the ‘fancied resemblance’ between the funnel-shaped flowers and a uterus, referred to in the common name of ‘birthwort’. Mabey reports that the Oxford botanist, Prof E F Warburg was fond of scandalising audiences by describing birthwort as a ‘good arbortifacient, only found in England in nunneries, where it is an introduced plant,’ and goes on to say that most of the naturalised colonies of birthwort are – or were- on the sites of old abbeys or ecclesiastical establishments, including Bury St Edmunds Abbey, Suffolk, and it may once have been commercially cultivated in and around Cambridge where populations cling on.

This is a classic example of the medieval doctrine of signatures that permeated folkloric medicine and which stated that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body.  Birthwort is in fact highly toxic and can cause kidney failure.

University of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden

Social

  • Follow us on YouTube
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Threads
  • Follow us on LinkedIn

© 2025 Cambridge University Botanic Garden

  • Privacy policy
  • Contact us