White Bryony

The surprisingly hairy and gently understated flowers of White Bryony are still gracing our local hedgerows.This is the only native member of the Cucumber family in the British Isles, and grows on well-drained, often base-rich, soils. As the Latin name, Bryonia dioica, suggests, the male and female flowers occur on separate plants. This is a male plant so won't produce any strings of small, opaque, bright-red berries this autumn.


Historically, the often huge roots of White Bryony were sometimes used as a cheap substitute for the Mediterranean plant Mandrake. Mandrake roots often grow to resemble the human form and were therefore considered (under the Doctrine of Signatures) to be useful for enhancing sexual potency. As Mandrake doesn’t grow in Britain it was cheaper and more convenient to carve White Bryony roots to look like like Mandrake roots or even to grow them in special moulds to form the expected shape.