Useful and medicinal properties of a field or fielded stalk

Family Legumes - Fabaceae

The generic name is derived from the Greek word - a donkey, as donkeys readily eat the stalk, while other animals avoid it. Species definition in Latin means "plowed", "field" - because of the habitat.

Botanical description. A perennial herbaceous plant with a short brown rhizome, from which the

branch off the accessory roots. Stems erect, rounded, pubescent, with simple spines at the base or without them, 30-50( 80) cm high. At the base, the stems are often colored violet-reddish. Leaves are regular, petiolate, lower and middle are triple, upper - simple. Leaflets oblong-elliptical with a sharp-edged margin, glandularly pubescent on both sides. At the base of the leaves are two large stipules, fused with petioles. Flowers pink, on short pedicels, are located two in the axils of the upper leaves, forming dense spicate inflorescences. They are wrong, moths. Stamens 10, fused with threads into a tube through which the ovary and the lower part of the pestle pass. Ovary upper, single-cavity. Fruit is a round-ovate swollen bean surrounded by a cup with 2-4 seeds. The whole plant has a peculiar, unpleasant odor. Blooms in June - August. Fruits ripen in July - September.

Geographical spread. It grows in meadows, among shrubs, along the banks of reservoirs, on forest edges and glades. It occurs in the forest-steppe and steppe zones of the European part of the USSR and in the Caucasus in the form of single specimens or thickets.

Cultivated in the Poltava region of the Ukrainian SSR( Lubny State Farm of Medicinal Plants).Harvesting of wild plants can be made for the own needs of pharmacies. With success can be grown in Belarus( in Mogilev plants of 20 years of age).

Collection and drying. They gather roots in autumn in September-October. Plants dig up with shovels, shake the ground, cut off the above-ground part, roots, and the remaining rhizome is cut into several parts and buried in the ground, not deepening them, so that new plants grow on the same spot. On the plantations, the plants are plowed and the entire underground part is used. Roots are washed in cold water, wilted for 1-2 days, then dried in attics, under canopies, in sheds with good ventilation or in dryers at a temperature of 40-45 °.

Medicinal raw materials. Finished raw materials - the root of the stalk( Radix Ononidis) consists of woody cylindrical, straight or curved roots, often branched, with the remains of multi-headed rhizomes. Color of roots outside brown, inside - yellowish-brown. The smell is weak, peculiar, the taste is sweetish-bitter.

GOST 168116-71 admits: moisture not more than 14%;ash not more than 10%;crushed roots less than 2 cm in length not more than 2%;Blackened in fracture of roots no more than 1%;other parts of the stapler not more than 2%;organic impurity not more than 1%;mineral - no more than 1%.The extractive substances recovered by 70% alcohol must be at least 20%.

Chemical composition. The roots of the steel contain triterpene alcohol, etoceryl, flavonoids - ononine, astragaline, onon, traces of essential oil, tannins, resinous substances, citric acid.

Action and application. Biologically active substances in the stator slightly increase blood pressure and increase the amplitude of heartbeats, accelerate blood clotting, increase diuresis, with long-term use of drugs have a laxative effect.

Tinctura Ononidis is prescribed for haemorrhoids 40-50 drops 3 times a day for 30 minutes before meals for 2-3 weeks.