Chrysanthemum lavandulifolium

The signature dimeric lactone of this species, reported from flowers under the synonym Chrysanthemum boreale. In macrophages it blocked LPS-induced nitric oxide and prostaglandin E2 output by downregulating iNOS and COX-2, suppressed TNF-alpha and IL-1beta, inhibited NF-kappaB binding and I-kappaB degradation, and damped ERK and JNK signalling. Given orally it reduced carrageenan paw and TPA ear oedema in mice, so unlike most constituents in this corpus it has been shown to work in a whole animal.

Covalently engages NF-kappaB and, in a separate line of work using material isolated from Chrysanthemum indicum, inhibited RANKL-driven osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption and protected ovariectomised mice from bone loss. Note that it is shared with the pharmacopoeial wild chrysanthemum, so it cannot be used to tell the two drugs apart.

The dominant flavonoid glycoside of the capitula and a sedative and antioxidant flavone in its own right. Its practical importance here is regulatory rather than pharmacological: linarin, known in Chinese as meng hua gan, is the assay marker the Chinese Pharmacopoeia uses to identify Ye Ju Hua from Chrysanthemum indicum, and this species contains it, so a linarin assay cannot distinguish the two.

Carries much of the antioxidant activity of the water extract and floral water. It is the compound most often cited for the cytoprotective use of aqueous preparations of this species.

Identified by network pharmacology and docking as one of three principal actives in the essential oil tested against periodontitis. It is a well-known anti-inflammatory and skin-soothing sesquiterpene alcohol, the same compound that carries much of chamomile's topical activity.

Gives the distilled oil its blue colour and showed the strongest computed binding of any oil component to HSP90AA1 in the periodontitis study. Its presence is also chemical evidence that the plant carries matricin-type guaianolide precursors, which matters for the sesquiterpene-lactone allergy risk.

The third of the three oil constituents flagged as active against Porphyromonas gingivalis. It is antibacterial and mucolytic, and is the constituent most likely to account for the aromatic, eucalyptus-like character of the distilled oil.

One of the two monomeric sesquiterpene lactone series, alongside the cumambrins, singled out as principal products of the plant. It is useful chiefly as a chemotaxonomic marker; little pharmacology has been published for it.

Sets out the split that still governs the chrysanthemum drugs. Li Shizhen notes that the Shennong Bencao Jing calls chrysanthemum bitter while the Mingyi Bielu calls it sweet, and resolves this by holding that the genus contains both a sweet and a bitter kind: the sweet Gan Ju, purple-stemmed, fragrant, whose leaves can be made into soup, is the true chrysanthemum used for food; the bitter kind, green-stemmed and stout, smelling of mugwort and unfit to eat, is Ku Yi and is not true chrysanthemum. He records more than a hundred kinds and states that only the single-flowered Gan Ju is fit for tea and for medicine. Modern Chinese botany assigns the name Gan Ju to this species, but which plant the Ming-era Gan Ju was is contested, and Ku Yi corresponds to what is now dispensed as Ye Ju Hua from Chrysanthemum indicum.

The source Li Shizhen cites for chrysanthemum being sweet in taste, against the bitter reading in the Shennong Bencao Jing. The disagreement between the two is the origin of the Gan Ju and Ku Yi distinction, and therefore of the modern separation between the cultivated Ju Hua drugs and the wild Ye Ju Hua drug into which this species is sometimes collected.