Night-blooming cereus

Overview. Selenicereus grandiflorus, long known in older literature as Cactus grandiflorus, is a night-flowering climbing cactus native to Central America and the Caribbean, now cultivated widely for its enormous fragrant blooms. The fresh flowering stems are the part used, traditionally pressed into a tincture. It holds a distinctive place in nineteenth century Eclectic and physiomedical practice as a gentle cardiac tonic, prized for supporting a weak or irregular heart without the cumulative toxicity feared with digitalis.

Overview. Night-blooming cereus is a climbing, epiphytic cactus native to the deserts and scrublands of Mexico, the southwestern United States, and parts of the Caribbean, prized for its large, intensely fragrant flowers that open for a single night. The fresh flowering stems and flowers are the parts used medicinally. It entered nineteenth century American Eclectic and homeopathic practice as a cardiac remedy for functional heart weakness and remains best known today through the homeopathic mother tincture Cactus grandiflorus, though low-dose herbal tinctures are also used by some Western herbalists.

Clinical Notes. Increases nutrition to heart, augments contractile power and regulates irregular heart rhythm TCM= Heart qi and yang deficiency, relieves blood stagnation, circulates heart blood, releases constraint, resolves damp through circulation of blood, treats disturbed shen (spirit

Clinical Notes. Eclectic physicians reached for cactus in patients with a weak, irregular pulse and a subjective sense of constriction around the heart, often accompanied by anxiety out of proportion to any structural finding.