Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Cypripedium pubescens is a homeopathic remedy made from the root of yellow lady's slipper, a wild orchid. People take it hoping for calmer nerves and easier sleep. Another old name for it is nerve root.
It is a single drug, which means it is made from one source and not a blend. The Latin name of the plant is Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens.
The root is soaked in alcohol. The liquid is then shaken and watered down again and again, a step called serial dilution. At the usual 30C strength none of the plant is left, so you are taking sugar and water.
Trials have not shown this kind of remedy working better than a dummy pill. Long use in a tradition is not proof that a thing works. Those are two separate things, and this page reports both.
The honest answer is that no one has shown a way it could work in the body.
Homeopathy holds that a tiny dose of a thing that causes a symptom can also ease that symptom. It also holds that shaking leaves some trace of the plant in the water. Chemistry does not support this idea.
At 30C the maths is clear. Not one molecule of the root is likely to remain. So there is nothing left to act on your nerves or your sleep.
Any calm that people feel is best explained by placebo. That is the real lift you can get from care, rest, attention and hope. It is a true effect, but it does not come from the pill.
You will usually see it as small sugar pills or tiny round pillules. These are soaked in the diluted liquid and left to dry.
It also comes as liquid drops in an alcohol base. Some shops sell it inside mixed remedies for sleep or stress.
Common strengths are 6C, 12C and 30C. Low strengths such as 1X and 3X are sold too, and these can still hold traces of the plant. Crude herbal tinctures of lady's slipper root are a different product and are not the same as this remedy.
Yellow lady's slipper is a wild orchid of North America. Native American healers used the root for poor sleep and frayed nerves.
Settlers copied that use and gave it the name nerve root. In the 1800s American herb doctors sold it widely as a calming herb.
Homeopaths took it up in the same era. Their books link it to a child who wakes in the night, wide awake and merry, and will not settle.
Heavy digging harmed the wild plant. It is now protected in many places, so wild picking is banned or tightly limited.
See a doctor if poor sleep lasts more than a few weeks, or if it is wearing you down in the daytime.
See a doctor sooner if you feel low, hopeless, panicky or unsafe, or if you snore loudly and stop breathing in your sleep.
For a baby or young child who will not settle, get them checked if they are hot, floppy, feeding badly, or crying in a way that is new for them.
Go to hospital or call for help straight away if there is chest pain, a fit, trouble breathing, a stiff neck with fever, or a rash that does not fade when you press it.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Cypripedium pubescens is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
One email with the summary. We'll also send a short weekly evidence update — unsubscribe any time.
