Ye Bai He
StarCrotalaria sessiliflora L.
Synonyms: Crotalaria brevipes Champ. ex Benth.
Also known as: Yeh Pai Ho · Wade–Giles
Safety at a glance
- Caution · 5 recorded drug interactions, 4 major or contraindicated
- Note · Botanical genus — Crotalaria includes species reported to contain hepatotoxic unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids; the content of this species or preparation is not verified here
No rule in our tables for this herb: pregnancy, breastfeeding, incompatible pairs (十八反 / 十九畏), herb–drug, dose ceiling. This is not a safety clearance.
Not graded — No toxicity grade is recorded. Most herbs in the catalogue carry none.
Traditionally used for
- Urinary & fluids
- Sleep
- Skin
Cautions & contraindications
- Pregnancy
- Breastfeeding
- Young children
- Liver conditions
- Toxic — professional use only
☯ TCM Properties
Dispels Heat, promotes urination and removes toxins; Replenishes Yin and tonifies the Kidneys
Traditional Chinese Uses
Under the name Herba Crotalariae, Ye Bai He (also called Nong Ji Li) is the aerial part of Crotalaria sessiliflora, a sweet, bland, cold heat-clearing herb. It clears Heat, resolves toxicity, and promotes urination, and in folk and modern Chinese practice it has been used empirically against tumours, notably skin and cervical carcinoma, as well as for damp-heat sores and dysuria.
Important caution: Crotalaria sessiliflora contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids (including monocrotaline), which are hepatotoxic and potentially carcinogenic after hepatic bioactivation. Internal use carries a real risk of hepatic veno-occlusive disease and should be regarded as historical/investigational rather than routine self-medication. This herb should not be confused with the true Bai He (Lilium bulb), an unrelated lung-moistening medicinal.
Western Herbalism Properties
Click a node for details · double-click to expand it · Ctrl/⌘ + scroll or two fingers to zoom and pan.
Botanical Description
Ye Bai He (野百合), also called Nong Ji Li, is the dried whole herb of Crotalaria sessiliflora L. (Fabaceae), an erect annual 30-100 cm tall of grassy slopes, roadsides, and sandy fields across China, Korea, Japan, and tropical Asia. The stems and narrowly lanceolate leaves are clothed in long brown appressed hairs. Sessile purplish-blue to violet pea-flowers cluster in dense terminal and leaf-opposed heads, subtended by conspicuous bracts, ripening into inflated oblong pods enclosing loose seeds. Bitter and cool with definite toxicity from pyrrolizidine alkaloids (chiefly monocrotaline), the herb clears heat, promotes urination, and resolves toxicity; it is used for dysentery, sores and abscesses, snakebite, and notably as an anticancer agent. Despite its literal name it is not a lily.
Open grassy hillslopes, roadsides, dry sandy fields, and waste ground at low to middle elevations.
Active Constituents
Monocrotaline
1,2-unsaturated macrocyclic pyrrolizidine alkaloid (retronecine diester)Concentration: the predominant and in some analyses the sole pyrrolizidine alkaloid of the herb; the five alkaloids quantified in the aerial parts by UPLC-Q-Orbitrap/MS together ranged from 3.3 to 30.4 micrograms per gram, with markedly higher levels in the seeds
The compound that defines this herb's risk. Monocrotaline is bioactivated by hepatic cytochrome P450 to reactive dehydropyrrolizidine metabolites that bind cellular proteins as pyrrole-protein adducts, damaging hepatic sinusoidal endothelium. It is also the classical experimental agent for inducing pulmonary hypertension in rats, and is documented as cytotoxic, tumorigenic, hepatotoxic and neurotoxic.
There is no therapeutic window that separates the herb's traditional actions from this toxicity, because the alkaloid is the major alkaloidal constituent rather than a contaminant.
Retrorsine
1,2-unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloidA second hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloid confirmed in the herb. Like monocrotaline it requires CYP-mediated bioactivation to become hepatotoxic, and its adducts are indistinguishable in effect from monocrotaline's.
Senecionine
1,2-unsaturated macrocyclic pyrrolizidine alkaloidConfirmed in Crotalaria sessiliflora by mass spectrometry. Senecionine is one of the alkaloids most strongly associated with hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome from herbal exposure.
Integerrimine
1,2-unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloidA geometric isomer of senecionine, confirmed as a co-occurring alkaloid of the herb and carrying the same class hepatotoxicity.
O-9-Angeloylretronecine
Pyrrolizidine alkaloid (retronecine monoester)A monoester retronecine alkaloid confirmed in the herb. Monoesters are generally less hepatotoxic than the macrocyclic diesters but are not benign, since the 1,2-unsaturated necine core is the toxicophore.
2',4',5,7-Tetrahydroxyisoflavone
IsoflavoneOne of the isoflavonoids isolated from the whole plant, part of a set of twenty-one isoflavonoids reported from this species. Isoflavonoids of the genus are credited with the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity often attributed to the herb.
2',4',7-Trihydroxyisoflavone
IsoflavoneA further isoflavone of the aerial parts. A glucoside of this aglycone, 7,2',4'-trihydroxyisoflavone-4'-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside, was isolated from the plant and reported to have oestrogenic and acetylcholinesterase-enhancing activity.
4',7-Dihydroxyflavone
FlavoneA flavone aglycone of the aerial parts, isolated alongside the isoflavonoid fraction.
Isovitexin
Flavone C-glycosideOne of the flavonoid glycosides recovered from the plant and among the four flavonoids targeted by extraction studies of the herb.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Any hepatotoxic drug (paracetamol, methotrexate, isoniazid, azole antifungals, amiodarone)
Aqueous extract of Crotalaria sessiliflora, whose only pyrrolizidine alkaloid is monocrotaline, was administered orally to rats; serum ALT rose dose-dependently and the rise correlated closely with the formation of hepatic pyrrole-protein adducts. The same relationship held for other pyrrolizidine-containing plants regardless of alkaloid structure, so the adduct burden is the proximate determinant of injury.
Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are a leading cause of herb-induced liver injury in China and are the major identified aetiology of hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome there, presenting with abdominal distension, ascites and jaundice. Adding a second hepatotoxin to that background is straightforwardly additive.
Clinical note: This herb should not be prescribed alongside any hepatotoxic drug, and arguably should not be prescribed at all in the absence of a dose-ranging safety study. If it is used, baseline and serial liver function tests are the minimum, and any new abdominal distension or ascites requires immediate cessation and hepatology referral.
CYP3A4 inducers (rifampicin, carbamazepine, phenytoin, St John's wort)
1,2-unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids are not toxic as ingested; they become toxic after cytochrome P450-mediated oxidation to reactive dehydropyrrolizidine electrophiles that form pyrrole-protein adducts. Inducing the responsible P450 activity increases flux down the bioactivation route and therefore increases adduct formation at any given dose of herb.
Clinical note: Absolute avoidance. A patient on an enzyme inducer is at higher risk from the same quantity of herb than an untreated patient.
Agents that deplete glutathione (paracetamol at or above therapeutic maximum, chronic alcohol, prolonged fasting)
Glutathione conjugation is a principal route by which the reactive pyrrolic metabolites are removed before they can bind cellular protein. Rat studies of pyrrolizidine hepatotoxicity track hepatic glutathione alongside ALT for exactly this reason. Depleting glutathione is expected to shift the balance toward adduct formation.
Clinical note: Avoid in heavy drinkers, in malnourished patients, and in anyone using regular full-dose paracetamol.
Bai He (Bulbus Lilii, Lilium species)
The pinyin Ye Bai He reads as wild Bai He, but the two drugs are unrelated. Bai He is the fleshy bulb scale of Lilium species, a moistening, essentially non-toxic drug used for Lung and Heart yin deficiency. Ye Bai He here is Crotalaria sessiliflora, a legume whose defining constituents are 1,2-unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
Recorded here as a naming hazard rather than a documented substitution series: the risk is that a prescription or a supplier abbreviates one name to the other.
Clinical note: Confirm the binomial on any material supplied under either name. If a patient reports taking Bai He and has abnormal liver function or ascites, establish which plant they actually received.
Use in pregnancy, breastfeeding and in children
1,2-unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids as a class are hepatotoxic, genotoxic and tumorigenic, and neonatal and infant hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome from maternal pyrrolizidine exposure is a recognised presentation of this class of poisoning.
Clinical note: Contraindicated in pregnancy, in breastfeeding and in paediatric practice.
Dosage Calculator
⚖ Dosage Calculator
A weight-based mathematical estimate for Ye Bai He. Not a prescription.
Evidence Tier
1 study on recordRecorded studies by study design, strongest design at the top. This is a study-design tier only, not a GRADE rating: it does not weigh risk of bias, consistency or precision.
Systematic review / meta-analysis
0
Randomized controlled trial
0
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
1
1 verified · 0 unverified
Other / unclassified
0
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
Pyrrolizidine Alkaloid-Induced Hepatotoxicity Associated with the Formation of Reactive Metabolite-Derived Pyrrole–Protein Adducts
Rats were given oral aqueous extracts of several pyrrolizidine-containing plants, among them Crotalaria sessiliflora, whose only pyrrolizidine alkaloid is monocrotaline. Liver enzyme activity, cellular damage markers and pyrrole-protein adduct levels were measured. The elevation of ALT correlated well with hepatic pyrrole-protein adduct formation irrespective of the structure of the individual alkaloid.
The authors propose adduct measurement as a rapid screen for the hepatotoxic potential of pyrrolizidine-containing natural products. For this herb the practical reading is direct: an aqueous decoction, which is how it would be taken, produced measurable dose-dependent liver injury in vivo.
⚠ Rule-Based Cautions
These entries come from the deterministic rule tables that gate Verscienta's formula tools — classical pair prohibitions, pregnancy and lactation contraindications, dose ceilings, and drugs outside the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. The botanical-genus entries are different: advisory notes are not part of the safety screen; the Aristolochia genus check is.
From the botanical genus
Crotalaria includes species reported to contain hepatotoxic unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids; the content of this species or preparation is not verified here.
Pyrrolizidine-alkaloid genera — advisory note — recorded as Crotalaria sessiliflora. Botanical names: WCVP
- EMA/HMPC/893108/2011 Rev. 1 (2021), Public statement on the use of herbal medicinal products containing toxic, unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) — “Fabaceae (genus Crotalaria)”
- Roeder E. Medicinal plants in China containing pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Pharmazie 2000;55(10):711–726 — “Plant and seeds contain monocrotaline (62) in high concentration”
- Willette RE, Cammarato LV. Phytochemical survey of Connecticut. I. Isolation of monocrotaline from Crotalaria sagittalis L. fruit. J Pharm Sci 1972;61:122 (title only; no abstract) — “Isolation of monocrotaline from Crotalaria sagittalis L. fruit”
References
- Wei Zhang, Wenbei Huai, Yi Zhang, Jincan Shen, Xunyou Tang, Xiujuan Xie, Ke Wang, Huajun Fan. Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography Hyphenated with Quadrupole-Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry for Simultaneous Determination of Necine-Core-Structure Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids in Crotalaria sessiliflora L. without all Corresponding Standards . Phytochemical Analysis (2017) [DOI]
- E. Röder, X. Liang, K. Kabus. Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids from the Seeds of Crotalaria sessiliflora . Planta Medica (1992) [DOI]
- Hun Sung Yoo, Ji Suk Lee, Chul Young Kim, Jinwoong Kim. Flavonoids of crotalaria sessiliflora . Archives of Pharmacal Research (2004) [DOI]
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any herbal remedy, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.
📝 Notes
Public notes from the community and your own private notes on Ye Bai He.
No notes yet.