Useful and medicinal properties of mountaineer pepper( pepper water)
Family buckwheat - Polygonaceae
Generic name - see Highlander snake. Species definition in Latin means "water pepper", as the plant is hygrophilous and has a peppery taste.
Botanical Description. Annual herbaceous plant with a burning taste, unlike other plants related to it. Stem erect, 20-50( 70) cm high, arched( widened at the nodes) and blushing during the period of fruit formation. It is often rooted from below because of the formation of thin accessory roots. Leaves are alternate, pro-dwarfish-lanceolate or lanceolate, with narrow-wedged base. Sockets are glabrous, blushing early on the edge with short cilia. Flowers are small with a greenish-pink perianth, collected in a slightly drooping, thin, filiform, intermittent spiky brush. Fruits are trihedral black nuts.
Blossoms from the end of July to September. Fruits ripen in August - October.
Geographical distribution. It grows on marshy meadows, wet river banks, along melioration canals. As a weed plant is found in the fields in irrigated agriculture, in villages along the streets without a hard coating. It is widely distributed throughout the European part of the USSR, in Siberia, in the Caucasus. In Central Asia and Kazakhstan, it grows mainly in mountain areas. The main areas of procurement are Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Voronezh and Sverdlovsk regions, Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories of the RSFSR.
Collection and drying. Collect the herb during flowering, cutting off the flowering floral parts of plants with a sickle or knife, leaving the lower coarse parts of the stems. At the same time, some of the plants are left for seed reproduction. The collected grass is sorted before drying, removing stems with yellowed leaves and foreign plants.
Dry in the shade, laying a thin layer in attics, in well-ventilated areas, under
canopies or in dryers at a temperature of 40-50 °.
Medicinal raw materials. Herba Polygoni hydropipe-ris is a herb of water pepper with green, sometimes reddish, leafy stalks with flowers and fruits in various stages of maturity up to 45 cm. Leaves are about 3-6 cm long and 0.5-1.5 cm wide. The funnels are red-brown, glabrous. Brushes of flowers 4-6 cm in length. On the perianth under the magnifying glass, slightly rising shiny brownish glands are found. Odor is absent;peppery taste disappears when dried and becomes herbaceous.
Art.326 ГФ X admits a moisture no more than 14%;ash not more than 8%;grass, which has lost its normal color( with burnt, blackened, yellowed leaves and stems), no more than 2%;shredded parts of water pepper, including the remaining leaves, flowers and fruits not more than 10%;the administrative impurity is not more than 3%, the mineral impurity is no more than 0.5%.
The extractive substances recovered by 70% alcohol must be at least 17%.
Organic impurities include parts of other non-poisonous plants and other related mountaineer species. The mountaineers with a dense cylindrical rampous inflorescence are easy to recognize: a mountainous pochechuyny, whose leaves have one dark spot disappearing on drying( in dry raw material it is often pale, but distinguishable), a perianth without pink glands, and a mountainous scabrous with the same inflorescence from almostwhite flowers with yellow glands. Leaves often with a spot, from below naked, with numerous dots( glands) that are visible to the naked eye, or pubescent( young leaves bear hairs that later fall off).In the latter case, the hairs mask the glands.
The mountaineers with a thin inflorescence are more similar to water pepper, but they do not have glands on the perianth, and the funnels are long-bellied and pubescent. It is a mountaineer small and a soft woman.
In all doubtful cases, they resort to microscopy. The mountain pepper( water pepper) in the leaves has receptacles with tarry substances, which determine its peppery taste. When drying raw materials, resinous substances are oxidized, why the burning is lost, but the oxidized ones remain and are detected under a microscope. All the other highlanders of tarry vessels in the leaves do not have.
Chemical composition. The herb of water pepper contains flavonoids: rutin, quercetin, quercitrin, hyperoside, ramnetin, isoramnetin and kaempferol. In addition, there is a glycoside polygopiperine, vitamins C, K, E, carotene, p-sitosterol, tannins, organic acids, traces of essential oil, resinous substances, macro- and trace elements, including manganese, magnesium, titanium, silver, etc.
Action and application. The herb of water pepper, especially fresh, has a hemostatic effect. In addition, the liquid extract of water pepper strengthens the contractions of the uterus musculature, but the activity is inferior to ergot.
It is used for copious and prolonged menstruation, with uterine bleeding, hemorrhoids, less often with gastric and intestinal bleeding. Assign infusion of 20 g. Raw materials for 200 ml of water for 1 tablespoon 3-4 times a day;liquid extract - 30-40 drops 2-3 times a day.