Useful and medicinal properties of the mountaineer of pochechuynogo( pochechuynogo grass)
Family Buckwheat - Polygonaceae
Generic name - see Horace serpentine. Species definition in translation from Latin - peach - because of the similarity of the leaves of this plant with peach leaves.
Botanical description. Annual herbaceous plant with a thin, unbranched rod-like root. Stems erect or slightly raised, 20-50 cm high, with slightly thickened nodes. Leaves alternate, almost sessile, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, entire, at the base, with an oclinical appearance with dark-brown spots, less often without them. Sockets are ciliate and covered with compressed hairs. Flowers pink, less whitish, collected in a dense spicate inflorescence on the tip of the stem and axillary branches. Perianth without glands. Fruits are broadly ovate, black, flat, biconvex or trihedral nuts.
Blossoms and fructifies from July to autumn.
Geographical distribution. It grows on damp meadows, along the banks of rivers and water bodies, sometimes it is seen as a weed in the gardens, on the borders, in the raw forest
roads in the European part of the USSR, in the Caucasus, where it often forms large thickets, occurs in Central Asia, Western Siberia, the Krasnoyarsk Territory andin the Far East. It is widespread in Belarus, where the people are called "thrush", "drosen", as well as other types of mountaineers.
Collection and drying. Collect the grass, cutting sickle or knife olive flowering shoots of plants up to 40 cm long, without lower, coarse stalks. With a thick herbage, the plants can be cut with a scythe. Several well-developed plants are left for seed reproduction.
Collected grass is carefully sorted, discarding extraneous plants, as well as plants of the mountaineer pochechuynogo with yellowed leaves and affected by pests, and immediately dried, spreading the grass a thin layer under the canopies, in attics or in dryers at a temperature of 40-50 °.After drying, the raw materials are re-sorted, discarding plants with aged, blackened or yellowed leaves.
Medicinal raw materials. Ready-made raw materials - herb mountaine pochechuynogo( pochechuynaya herb) - Herba Polygoni per-sicariae consists of flowering and deciduous stems up to 40 cm long without coarse and non-leafless lower parts( with leaves and flowers of the structure described).On the upper side of the leaf, a dark stain is often noticeably pale during drying. The length of the leaves is 12-16 cm, width is 1.5-2.5 cm. The odor is absent, the taste is bitterish. Unripe nuts biconvex, plano-convex, rarely trihedral.
FS 42-414-72 allows moisture not more than 13%;grass, which has lost its normal color, no more than 10%;crushed parts passing through a sieve with a hole diameter of 2 mm, no more than 5%, an organic impurity not more than 3%;mineral - no more than 1%.
Other non-poisonous plants may be present as an organic impurity, and, first of all, mountaineers, similar to pochechuyu grass. Most often, inexperienced collectors collect a rough gruntler - Polygonum scabrum Moench. It is distinguished by the fact that its leaves have numerous dark-brown dots( glands) from below, and young ones are covered with numerous hairs pressed together. Cilia on the edge of the socket, or they are very short. Perianth whitish or greenish with yellow glands( under magnifying glass).Nuts biconcave.
Highland knotted knot - Polygonum nodosum Pers.has a red or mottled stem, leaves below with pinpoint glands, sockets naked with short cilia, flowers white or pink, inflorescences elongate, drooping. Nuts biconcave.
Chemical composition. Pochechuynaya grass contains flavonoids( avicular, hyperoside, quercetin and others), 1.5% tannins, anthraglycosides, vitamins C and K, traces of essential oil, organic acids, mucus, oxalic calcium( in the form of FRI), P-sitosterol and others
Action and application. Pochechuyaya grass has a mild laxative effect, as it increases intestinal peristalsis, increases diuresis, increases blood coagulability, and shows hypotensive effect.
It is used for hemorrhoids, especially in patients with atonic constipation, in the form of infusions from 20 g per 200 ml of water 2-3 tablespoons per meal before meals.