Motherwort

This is an erect perennial, 60-120cm high, with prominent coarsely-toothed 5-7-lobed leaves. Whorls of white to pink flowers arise in the upper leaf axils; the calyx and later the seed case are notable for the border of prickly teeth. Leonurus grows in waste places and hedgerows throughout northern temperate regions and is common in Britain.
Constituents: alkaloids (including leonurine and stachydrene), iridoid glycoside (leonuride), iridoid glycosides (including leonurin and leonuridine), diterpenoids (including leocardin), flavonoids (including rutin, quercetin, hyperoside and apigenin), volatile oil, tannins, vitamin AAction and Uses of Motherwort-
Diaphoretic, antispasmodic, tonic, nervine, emmenagogue.
Motherwort is especially valuable in female weakness and disorders (hence the name), allaying nervous irritability and inducing quiet and passivity of the whole nervous system.
As a tonic, motherwort acts without producing febrile excitement, and in fevers, attended with nervousness and delirium, it is extremely useful. Old writers tell us that there is no better herb for strengthening and gladdening the heart, and that it is good against hysterical complaints, and especially for palpitations of the heart when they arise from hysteric causes, and that when made into a syrup, it will allay inward tremors, faintings, etc.
There is no doubt it has proved the truth of their claims in its use as a simple tonic, not only in heart disease, neuralgia and other affections of the heart, but also in spinal disease and in recovery from fevers where other tonics are inadmissable.
In Macer's Herbal we find 'Motherwort' mentioned as one of the herbs which were considered all-powerful against 'wykked sperytis.'
Culpepper wrote this of Motherwort:
'Venus owns this herb and it is under Leo. There is no better herb to drive melancholy vapours from the heart, to strengthen it and make the mind cheerful, blithe and merry. May be kept in a syrup, or conserve, therefore the Latins call it cardiaca.... It cleansethe the chest of cold phlegm, oppressing it and killeth worms in the belly. It is of good use to warm and dry up the cold humours, to digest and disperse them that are settled in the veins, joints and sinews of the body and to help cramps and convulsions.'
And Gerard says:
'Divers commend it against infirmities of the heart. Moreover the same is commended for green wounds; it is also a remedy against certain diseases in cattell, as the cough and murreine, and for that cause divers husbandmen oftentimes much desire it.'