Useful and medicinal properties of the drug althea
Synonyms: marshmallow, mallow, wild rose, alteyny root, alteynaya grass, poppy wild, gingerbread man.
Description. A perennial herbaceous plant of the Malvaceae family, about 1.5 m high, with a powerful stem root. Rhizome thick, short polygonal. The stem is upright, roundish, woody below, green on top, juicy, slightly branched, cylindrical. Middle leaves alternate, hairy, lower stems - five-tilapastoid, heart- or ovate, upper - trilobate. The leaves are 5-20 cm long. The flowers are pale or bright pink, less often white, are located in the axils of the leaves, on the tip of the stem are collected on short pedicels, 15-20 mm in diameter. Fruit is a flattened, rounded, multi-lobe, in the form of a prophylax, in a mature state it breaks up into separate achenes. Blooms from late June to September;seeds ripen in July-August. Weight of 1000 seeds - 2,0-2,8 g.
Medicinal raw materials: root, grass.
Places of growth. It grows mainly in moist meadows, in damp places, in river floodplains, among shrubs, near ditches, along the banks of ponds, old men, lakes.
distribution. In the wild, it grows throughout Ukraine. Cultivated in the southern regions of the country.
Chemical composition. The root of the althaea contains 30-35% of mucus, 35-37% of starch, about 2% of asparagine, 8% of sugars, 10-20% of pectin substances, and 1.7% of fatty oil. Leaves and flowers also contain a significant amount of mucus and essential oil, in fruits - fatty oil( 12%)
Application. As a medicinal plant, the altey was known in ancient times. In Greek, "altos" is "to heal."Altheum was treated in Ancient Greece and Rome;in the Middle Ages it was cultivated in monastery gardens.
With a therapeutic purpose, mainly used root, less often leaves and flowers. Drugs made from althaea medicinal have an anti-inflammatory, softening, expectorant and protective enveloping effect on the mucous membrane of the stomach, prolong the actions of other medicinal substances taken with them, slowing their absorption. In scientific and folk medicine, medicinal althae are used for internal use in the form of a decoction or cold root infusion in diseases of the respiratory system( chronic bronchitis, tracheitis, gingivitis, bronchopneumonia, bronchial asthma, whooping cough) and gastrointestinal tract( catarrhal state of the esophagus, gastritis, enterocolitis, a stomach and duodenal ulcer, especially accompanied by diarrhea).Infusion and extract, in addition, use inside for the treatment of eczema and psoriasis. In folk medicine decoction of the root is taken internally with inflammation of the bladder, painful involuntary urination, dyspepsia in children, inflammatory processes in the kidneys, externally - for rinsing the mouth, throat, eye washing for inflammation of the eyelids, for enemas with diarrhea, and also as an anti-inflammatory andemollient in the form of poultices. Milk decoction of the root is used for pulmonary tuberculosis. Avicenna recommended decoction of the root, leaves and seeds of the althaea medicinal as an emollient for pleurisies, stones in the bladder and even for tumors. The root of the drug althea is used to prepare the pill and as a mucus in a diet. It also enters into the composition of breast teas. Foreign
practices in the treatment of diseases of the throat, lungs and digestive tract along with the roots use leaves and flowers. The root of the althaea is a part of breastmilk tea.
Biological features. In the zones of natural growth of marshmallows, medicinal prefer wet places. Solonetsous and waterlogged soils for its cultivation are unsuitable.
Agrotechnics of cultivation. Site selection. Under the marshmallow should be taken away light loamy and sandy loam chernozems, structural in texture, clean from weeds moist soils with shallow groundwater.
Since in one place marshmallows can grow up to 4 years, under it it is possible to take away zapolnye sites and place it in special crop rotations of medicinal plants. The best predecessors are steam, winter and tilled crops, which follow fertilizers.
Soil treatment. Plowing to plowing is carried out to a depth of 25-27 cm, and in areas with a small arable horizon - to its full depth.
Application of fertilizers. Under autumn plowing, humus is applied at a rate of 30-40 t / ha. Positive results are given by the addition of 45-60 kg / ha of phosphate mineral fertilizers and 30-45 kg / ha of potash fertilizers for basic plowing, together with humus. During sowing, together with the seeds, granular superphosphate( 30 kg / ha) is added to the beds.
Reproduction. Propagation of the altae mainly by sowing seeds in the soil with vegetable or grain seeders at the rate of 8-10 kg / ha with a row spacing of 70 cm. To improve the germination, the seeds are scarified - slightly rubbed between two plates, covered with emery paper, this breaks the hard seed coat, thereby contributingrapid swelling of seeds and their germination. Seeds are embedded to a depth of 1.5-2 cm. In order to begin the care of the crops as early as possible, the seeds of the plants are mixed with the althea seeds, which quickly grow( so-called beacons).
Care for plantations. After the emergence of sprouting, row spacing is carried out to a depth of 5-7 cm. If the shoots are thickened, 2-3 sprouted leaves are thinned, leaving 10 plants on each running meter of beds on 8-
.During the summer 2-4 times the cultivation of
is carried out with simultaneous weeding.
If necessary, in the transitional plantation, rowing and weeding are carried out during the vegetative period inclusive until the plants are closed in rows. From the second year of life, plants begin to feed ammonium nitrate at a rate of 30 kg / ha, and before wintering remove the dead parts of the althea.
Harvesting. The roots are harvested in the early spring( before the plants grow) or in autumn, plowing with a plowless plow to a depth of 25-30 cm. The roots are cleaned from the ground and quickly( for 20-25 min) washed with running water so that they do not become numb. Then cut into pieces 20-25 cm long;The thickest( 1.5 cm in diameter) are also cut along. The yield of air-dry roots averages 10-20 c / ha.
Drying. Dry in a fire drier at a temperature of 40 ° C.
Packing. The roots are packed in sacks and bales of 20-50 kg.
Storage. The roots are stored in wooden, well-closed boxes lined with paper, because they are hygroscopic and very easily damp. Powder - in paper multilayer bags, placed in bags of cloth. In pharmacies, raw materials are stored in glass jars.
Quality requirements. Raw materials must meet the requirements of the State Pharmacopoeia XI( FS-64, pp. 343-344).