Burseraceae

Commiphora myrrha

Myrrh

Untested Caution Wild populations declining from over-tapping and land-use change

Part used: resin
Native range: Arid northeastern Africa and the southern Arabian peninsula — Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Oman
Morphology: A small spiny deciduous tree of dry country, to five metres, with sparse trifoliate leaves. Cuts in the bark exude a pale gum-resin that hardens into reddish-brown tears.

What is in it

sesquiterpenes furanoeudesma-1,3-diene, curzerene

gum

volatile oil

Evidence

Little controlled clinical evidence. Laboratory work supports analgesic activity via opioid receptors for some constituents. Mouthwash preparations have modest support.

Safety

Generally well tolerated topically and as a mouthwash. Ingestion in quantity causes gastrointestinal upset and kidney irritation. Contraindicated in pregnancy — uterine stimulant activity is documented and was a traditional use.

Interactions: May affect blood glucose; Possible additive with anticoagulants

Regulatory: Permitted as a listed medicine ingredient and as a flavouring.

How the traditions classify it

Galenic Hot and dry, and a standard ingredient of wound preparations and of theriac.

Chinese Mo yao — bitter and neutral, used with frankincense to move blood and relieve pain.

Ayurvedic Used in the same role as guggul, its close relative.

Three systems, rating the same plant. Where they disagree, none of them is correcting the others — they are separate frameworks that arrived at their categories independently.

Historical use

One of the most valuable traded commodities of the ancient world, used in Egyptian embalming, temple incense, wound treatment and as an analgesic. The incense-route trade out of southern Arabia was built on myrrh and frankincense.

Recorded as history and attributed where possible. Long use establishes that a plant was widely used, not that it worked, and not that it was safe.

Worth knowing

Myrrh is one of the very few plants whose traditional analgesic use has a plausible receptor-level explanation: some of its sesquiterpenes bind opioid receptors. Egyptian and Greek use of myrrh in wound dressings and painkilling preparations may therefore have been doing something specific rather than merely aromatic.

Its trade history is the older and larger story. The incense routes out of southern Arabia existed to move myrrh and frankincense, and the cities along them were built on it. The trees are now under pressure from over-tapping, grazing and land-use change across Somalia and Ethiopia, and the same warnings that apply to frankincense apply here — harvested faster than they regenerate, for a trade four thousand years old.

Nomenclature verified against GBIF backbone taxonomy.