Useful and medicinal properties of mistletoe white
Family of Remembrane - Loranthaceae
The generic name comes from the Latin viscum - bird's glue, because the ancient Romans used a sticky flesh of fruits for catching birds.
The species definition in Latin means "white" because of the coloring of the fruit.
Botanical Description. The evergreen shrub is hemispherical or almost spherical in diameter up to 120 cm. Having retained its green color, it parasitizes on many deciduous and rarely coniferous trees. Such plants are called semiparasites. After the fall of the
, the green "caps" of mistletoe are clearly visible in the trees from a distance. The stem and branches are green, repeatedly dichotomously branched, ending in two opposite, leathery, oblong-lanceolate leaves with a blunt apex. The plant is dioecious. Flowers are same-sex, small, unattractive, yellowish-green, located in the branches of the upper branches.
Fruit is a globose, white, false berry, about 1 cm in diameter, in the sticky flesh of which is one seed. Seeds are spread by birds, especially thrushes. They scrape off the seeds adhering to the beak about the branches of the trees or leave them with a droppout. Once on thin branches, the seeds germinate, the root penetrates through the thin bark into the wood. Branched in it and in the bark, it turns into sucker roots, supplying the mistletoe with organic substances from the host plant.
Blossoms in March - April. Fruits ripen in September - October.
Geographical spread. It parasitizes on various trees, most often on poplars, pears, apples and willows, less often on lindens, birches, hawthorns, hornbeams, oaks, walnut and rozhinia pseudoaktsia( popularly called white acacia).Having appeared on one tree, it can be quickly transferred to others.
occurs in the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and the Caucasus.
Collection and drying. Collect mistletoe in late autumn or winter. After the fall, it becomes well marked. Bushes cut with brushes, pulled from the trees by hips, broken off by hand or cut down with axes. Often, trees affected by mistletoe, cut down to protect others from infection. In this case, the collection of raw materials is facilitated. At the collected plants, thick stems are discarded, fruits are removed, and thin shoots are cut into pieces no longer than 20 cm and poured into sacks or baskets.
Dry raw materials in attics, under canopies, in sheds with good ventilation or in dryers at a temperature of 40-50 °.
Medicinal raw materials. Ready-made raw materials - Cormus and folium Visci albi consists of a mixture of leaves and young shoots up to 20 cm long, re-forked, naked, at the ends with opposite leaves. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, oblong or elliptical, blunt at the apex, narrowed to the base, entire with arcuate veins. They are thick, leathery, 3-8 cm long, 1-2.5 cm wide.
The color of the raw material is yellowish green. Smell and taste are absent.
FS 42-393-72 allows: moisture not more than 10%;total ash not more than 10%;crushed parts passing through a sieve with a hole diameter of 3 mm, not more than 3%;organic and mineral impurities, as well as mistletoe berries not more than 1%.Now raw materials are unofficial.
Chemical composition. Mistletoe contains an amorphous substance, viscotoxin, consisting of a large number of amino acids and sugars, a- and( 3-viskol, viscerin, oleanova and ursolic acids, choline and its derivatives, amines( tyramine, viskalbin, viscamine and others), alcohols, queubrachitis and others), flavonoids( flavoyadorinin A and 5, homoflavoidadurinin B, ramna-zine-3-glucoside, 4-glycosides 7,3-dimethylullolin, quercetin, ramnetin, isoramnetin, etc.). In addition, there is a small amount of fattyoil, vitamin C, carotene, tarry substances
Action and application.of the active substances of mistletoe dilates the blood vessels and lowers arterial pressure, intensifies cardiac activity, has a sedative and weak hemostatic effect. The mechanism of hypotensive action is associated with a decrease in the tone of the vasomotor center and, probably, a reflex effect
It is used as an antihypertensive agent in hypertensive disease I and IIstages, with atony of the intestine and pulmonary, as well as nasal bleeding.
Assign infusion or decoction from 15 g. Mixture of shoots and leaves per 200 ml of water for 1 tablespoon 3 times a day.