Useful and medicinal properties of cudweed
Family Compositae( Asters) - Asteraceae
The generic name comes from the Greek word gnaphalon - wool, felt, which indicates the woolly felt felt of the plant. Species definition in the translation from Latin - "raw", "wet", "to-five" is given by the habitat of the plant.
Botanical Description. Annual herbaceous plant with a thin rod-shaped root and rounded prostrate-branched from the base, less often a simple stem, 5-20 cm high. Leaves alternate, oblong, narrowed toward the base. The flowers are small, light yellow, collected in small egg-shaped baskets, crowded with dense bundles on the tops of branches and surrounded by radiantly divergent upper leaves. Marginal flowers - filiform, pistil, median - tubular, bisexual. The calyx, as well as at all moderately colored, is absent, instead of it - a crest of 10 voloskov. Fruit is a light brown oblong small seed with an easily falling crest. The whole plant is more or less grayish-pubescent.
Blossoms in June - August. Fruits ripen in August - October.4
Geographical distribution. It grows on soils with increased moisture: along damp forest roads, along the edge of swamps, along river banks, in ditches, but more often occurs as a weed plant on potato and rye fields. Despite the high culture of farming, regular cultivation( weed removal) in kitchen gardens, kolkhoz and sovkhoz fields, this ungainly weed often appears again due to the simultaneous sprouting.
occurs almost throughout the European part of the USSR, especially in the forest and forest-steppe zones, Siberia and the Far East.
The main areas of blanks are in Belarus, the central and north-western regions of the RSFSR.
Collection and drying. Gather the weed grass with a blossom in the flowering period - in June - August. Gathering on the fields is made after mowing the rye and before mowing the tops of the potato. Plants are torn out, shaking the ground and, without cutting off the roots, they are dried in the open air( on stubble, meadow), often tiring plants like hay. Drying in the sun is allowed here, because numerous hairs covering almost all parts of the plant protect it from burning out. In inclement weather, the grass is dried under canopies, in attics or in dryers at a temperature of 40 °.
Medicinal raw materials. Finished raw materials - herb cobweb grass( Herba Gnaphalii uliginosi) consists of whole plants with grayish-white felt pubescence, containing inflorescences, occasionally with fruits. Stems are rounded, branched from base, 5 to 20 cm in length. Leaves are small, 0.5 to 2.5 cm long, 1 to 4 mm wide, oblong, with blunt apex and prominent superior vein, narrowed to short in basepetiole. Baskets very small, 3-4 mm long, densely crowded with small glomeruli on tops of branches, surrounded by radiantly divergent leaves. The wrapper of the basket is multi-row. External leaves at the base are felt, in the upper half glabrous, dark brown, shiny, the rest - bare, dark brown. Fruit is an oblong achene with a tuft.
Smell weak, peculiar, a bitterish taste.
Art.323 ГФ X admits: moisture not more than 13%;ash not more than 20%;organic impurity not more than 2%;mineral impurity not more than 2%.
As an organic impurity, there may be other plants, similar to the swine sheathed.
Forest Cropper - Gnaphalium sylvaticum L. - a perennial herbaceous plant with a rhizome. Stem is straight, unbranched, only at the base with short shoots, 20-60 cm high. The raw material is easily determined by larger cylindrical baskets collected at the tip of the stem into a narrow spicate inflorescence.
Field jelly - Filago arvensis L. An annual plant with a simple or branched stem from the middle. Leaflets wrapped white-pointed and pubescent, not brown.
Chemical composition. Grass of swine grasses contains flavonoids, about 30 mg% of carotene, up to 4% of tannins, up to 16% of resinous substances, traces of essential oil and alkaloids, phytosterols, thiamine, vitamin C, etc.
Action and application. Biologically active substances swine swine have antihypertensive properties, dilate peripheral vessels, slow down the rate of heart contractions, increase peristalsis of the intestine. The oil extract, containing carotene and other lipophilic substances, has wound-healing properties, promotes the regeneration of damaged tissues. Infusion at the rate of 10 g. Of raw material per 200 ml of water is prescribed for 1/2 cup 2-3 times a day in the initial stage of hypertension. In addition to internal purposes, it is recommended to make foot baths( 200 g per 5 liters of water).It is used in combination with cyanosis for the treatment of gastric ulcer.