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Review
. 2025 May 13;14(10):1451.
doi: 10.3390/plants14101451.

Hypericum hircinum L.: Botany, Traditional Uses, Phytochemistry, and Pharmacological Properties

Noemi Tocci  1 , Manuel Pramsohler  1 , Lorenza Conterno  1 , Tobias Weil  2
Affiliations
Review

Hypericum hircinum L.: Botany, Traditional Uses, Phytochemistry, and Pharmacological Properties

Noemi Tocci et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Hypericum hircinum L., commonly known as goat St. John's wort or stinking tutsan, is a medicinal plant native to the Mediterranean basin and widespread across Europe and parts of the Middle East. It has a long history of traditional uses in folk medicine to treat respiratory diseases, wounds, and burns and to relieve migraine, rheumatism, and muscular pains. Despite numerous scientific studies shading light on the phytochemical profile and on the beneficial properties of the plant extracts, a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge is missing. In this paper, we summarized the available information on botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry, and pharmacological properties of Hypericum hircinum from peer-reviewed articles published till March 2025 in PubMed, ScienceDirect, Wiley, Springer, ACS, Scielo, and Web of Science databases. The presence of numerous valuable compounds, including terpenes, phenolic acids, flavonoids, and phloroglucinols, is reported as well as the wide range of pharmacological properties, such as antimicrobial, antifungal, antiviral, antidepressant, anti-collagenase, anti-α-glucosidase, and antioxidant activities, together with non-pharmacological properties. The data reported in this review contribute to a deeper understanding of the biological properties of the species and pave the way for further investigation of its potential applications.

Keywords: Hypericum; Hypericum hircinum; antimicrobial; essential oils; pharmacology; phenols; traditional uses.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A flow chart of the literature selection process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of Hypericum hircinum L. in Europe. Source: H. hircinum L. in GBIF Secretariat (2023). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. The color scale reflects the frequency of observations. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 10 March 2025.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic representation of preparation and uses of H. hircinum according to ethnopharmacological records.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Chemical structures of major compounds in H. hircinum L. extracts.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Pharmacological properties of H. hircinum L. extracts and EO. nd: not determined.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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