White meconella (Meconella oregana) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 9
Special Significance of the Species
This species is not known to have been used traditionally by Aboriginal people (Moerman 1998; Turner pers. comm. 2004). However, the closely related Meconella californica contains protopine (Stermitz and Coomes, 1969), an alkaloid common in the Papaveraceae that is known to be pharmacologically active (Kutchan and Dittrich 1995). The small size of this plant and its rarity would make the extraction of the alkaloid unfeasible.