Found in the Hermetikon archive

Apple

Malus domestica

Apple appears in Hermetikon as an archive-backed plant entry, with references across historical medical, magical, symbolic, and ritual contexts where the source texts support them.

Risk: low concern
Books: 107
Contexts: 5
Mentions: 433

Overview Reading Contexts Citations Related Books

Archive Profile

Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.

Herb identity

Common name: apple
Latin name: Malus domestica(ambiguous)
Identity note: Apple is highly symbolic and can refer to fruits, myths, or metaphorical objects.

Safety

low concern

Ordinary food use is low concern; historical seed, cider, or symbolic uses are not medicinal advice.

Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.

Kew POWO: Ordinary food use is low concern; historical seed, cider, or symbolic uses are not medicinal advice.

Aliases

appleapple treeapplesMalus domestica

Apple in Historical Sources

Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.

Hermetikon's curated reading of Apple (Malus domestica) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 2 preparation or ritual-use entries. The strongest recurring contexts are medicine and astrology. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.

Medicine

high

Culpeper assigns the apple tree to Venus and interprets its physical uses by taste: sweet apples loosen, while hard and sour apples and leaves bind.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 15

Medicine

high

King's American Dispensatory treats apple tree bark as tonic and febrifuge, with decoction and syrup uses distinct from ordinary fruit symbolism.

King's American Dispensatory | Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

Page 725

Astrology

medium

Picatrix uses an apple in a Venus image, presenting the fruit as part of a planetary-talismanic visual language rather than materia medica.

Picatrix | Anonymous (Medieval Islamic author, often attributed to Maslama al-Majriti or his school) | 1050

Page 70

Preparations and ritual uses

Apple-tree bark decoction

high

King's describes apple-tree bark decoction as a tonic and febrifuge historical preparation, and also notes syrup of sweet apple-tree bark.

King's American Dispensatory | Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

Page 725

Written apple charm

medium

Scot records an ague charm in which an apple is cut into three pieces and each piece is inscribed with a Trinitarian phrase.

The Discoverie of Witchcraft | Reginald Scot | 1584

Page 318

Apple Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Medicine

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as apples; medium confidence.

Astrology

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: Picatrix.

Matched as apple; medium confidence.

Folk magic

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: The Discoverie of Witchcraft.

Matched as apple; medium confidence.

Preparation

8 passages across 8 books; strongest source: Culpeper's Complete Herbal.

Matched as apple tree; high confidence.

Ritual

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as apples; medium confidence.

Apple Cited Excerpts

Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.

5 shown

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper

1653

"...are so well known, that they need no description. *Government and virtues.*] The Tree belongs to Venus, and so doth the Apple tree. For their physical use they are best discerned by their taste. All the sweet and luscious sorts, whether manured or wild, do help to move the belly downwards, more or less. Those that are hard and sour, do, on the contrary, bind the belly as much, and the leaves do so also: Those that are moist do in some sort cool, but harsh or wild sorts much more, and are very good in repelling medicines; and if the wild sort be boiled with mushroo..."

Chapter 15Open in Reader

Preparationalias: apple treehigh confidence

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter

1854

"...(For further details, .see Husemann and H.i\geT, h\ Pflanzenstnffe, 1884, p. U> II.) Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.— Apple tree bark is tonic and febrifuge, and a decmlinii of it has been ust-d with advantage in intermittent, remittent, and biliou.(V(i :-:, and in convalescence from exhausting diseases. It may be given in doses of 1 to 4 Huid ounces, 3 times a day. A strong decoction or syrup of the sweet apple tree bark has been employed with success in some cases of gravel. The fruit, or apple, contains both malic and acetic acids, has a pleasant and refreshi..."

Page 725Open in Reader

Preparationalias: apple treehigh confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"... so little use is made of it. ### The MEDLAR TREE. *Mespilus.* A COMMON tree in our gardens. It is of the bigness of an apple tree, and grows in the same irregular manner: the branches have thorns on them. The leaves are longer and narrower than in the apple tree, and they terminate in a point. The blossoms are large and white. The fruit is roundish, and open at the bottom: and till very much mellowed, is of an austere taste. A strong decoction of unripe medlars, is good to stop violent purgings. The seeds work by urine, and are good against the gravel; but there ..."

Page 275Open in Reader

Preparationalias: apple treehigh confidence

Fourth Book & Magical Treatises

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (attributed)

1655

"... *Saturn* doth fignifie fields, vines, and inftruments to work in fields, and leather, and of fruits, corn, acorns, oak-apples, and pomegranates. *Jupiter* hath oil, honey, filk-wormes, cloth, wine, and grafs, and things that are odoriferous. *Mars* fignifies wine, and flefh, and efpecially hogs, wars, and armour, and fuch things as belong thereunto, and red garments. The *Sun* hath fignification of wheat, and wine, purple colours, and cloth, and all things that are affimulated unto gold, horfes and birds, fuch as hawks and falcons. *Venus* doth fignifie fatne..."

Page 190Open in Reader

Preparationalias: applesmedium confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1907

"...he streets bearing a little open coffin, in which is a doll hidden under a shroud. Others carry a beech branch, with an apple fastened to it for a head, in an open box. They sing, â€œWe carry Death into the water, it is well,â€ or â€œWe carry Death into the water, carry him in and out again.â€ 635 In other parts of Bavaria the ceremony took place on the Saturday before the fifth Sunday in Lent, and the performers were boys or girls, according to the sex of [pg 235] the last person who died in the village. The figure was thrown into water or buried in a secr..."

Â§ 11. The Magic Spring.Open in Reader

Preparationalias: applemedium confidence

Books Mentioning Apple

Complete public source inventory, placed after the interpretive reading so the page opens with the most useful synthesis first.

107 books

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

apple treeappleapples

21 mentionscited

The Evolution of the Dragon

G. Elliot Smith | 1919

apple treeappleapples

18 mentions

Encyclopaedia of Antiquities

Thomas Dudley Fosbroke | 1825

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Apple in Historical Sources

Medicine

Medicine

Astrology

Preparations and ritual uses

Apple-tree bark decoction

Written apple charm

Apple Archive Contexts

Medicine

Astrology

Folk magic

Preparation

Ritual

Apple Cited Excerpts

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

King's American Dispensatory

The Family Herbal

Fourth Book & Magical Treatises

The Golden Bough

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Apple