Useful and medicinal properties of licorice naked( liquorice)
Family of Legumes - Fabaceae
The generic name comes from the Greek words glykys - sweet and rhiza - root because of the sweet taste of the root. Species definition in Latin means "naked", as the fruits of this licorice, unlike other species, are bare. Species definition of the second species "Ural" is given at the place of growth, and the third - in honor of the Russian botanist SI Korzhinsky.
Botanical Description. All kinds of licorice are perennial herbaceous plants with a very powerful root system, which consists of many-tiered horizontal rhizomes, lying at different depths, from which the subordinate roots leave. From the underground shoots grow new stems, why one plant can grow on an area of several tens of square meters. Vegetative reproduction of licorice predominates over the seed. The roots in the fracture are yellow, very sweet.
Stems are rounded, upright, 70-150 cm high. Leaves are regular, non-paranasyllabic with two styliform stipules, which fall early. In licorice they are bare with 3-10 pairs of oblong-elliptical or ovoid and even lanceolate leaves, gluey, especially from below. Flowers are whitish-violet, collected in thin axillary brushes, irregular, with a double perianth. Calyx five-toothed, corolla butterfly, i.e.consists of 5 petals. The upper petal, the largest, is called a sail, or a flag, two lateral - oars, or wings, and two lower ones, growing together at the top, a boat. At the bottom of its 10 stamens, 9 of them are fused with threads into a tube, and 1 remains free. This stamen tube is called oblique, and the stamens are double-branched. Ovary upper, single-cavity, passes into the column and head stigma, towering above the anthers.
Fetus - oblong, compressed laterally, bob, naked or seared with glandular spines.
Blossoms in May - June. Fruits ripen in August - September.
Licorice Ural has wider elliptical and ovoid leaves and very dense thick brushes with larger flowers. Calyx at base saccularly swollen. Beans are sickly curved, twisted and bound in a dense tangle with spines on the surface.
Blossoms in June - July. Fruits ripen in late September.
Malt Korzhinsky differs from the Uralian by its smaller size and shape of leaflets and fruits.
Flowering and fruiting, like the licorice of the Urals.
All three types of licorice are equivalent. It is not allowed to prepare licorice licorice G. echinata L., which does not have long underground propagation shoots, and roots do not have a sweet taste.
Geographical distribution. Licorice grows along the floodplains and river valleys, along the banks and in the beds of dried up rivers and old men, at the bottom of ravines, near streams, aryks, solonetz steppe meadows and in the steppes, in crops and plantings are malignant weeds.
Licorice naked occurs in the southern belt of the European part of the USSR, in the Caucasus, and especially large thickets form in the valleys of large rivers of Central Asia, Kazakhstan and the Kura-Arak lowland of Transcaucasia.
Licorice is found in Kazakhstan, southern areas of Western Siberia, mountain valleys of the Pamirs, Tien Shan, Altai, and the steppes of the upper Yenisei.
Korzhinsky liquorice grows in the interfluve of the Volga, the Urals, Tobol, Ishim and Sarysu.
All kinds of licorice can be cultivated. Urals licorice produces particularly quickly the licorice, in which the subterranean shoots are located in the upper, humus-rich soil layer, which facilitates its collection. Planting is carried out by pieces of rhizomes. Studies of the Central Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR have proved the real possibility of growing licorice in Belarus.
Collection and drying. The preparation of licorice is made by the visiting teams of the All-Union Union "
liquorice" and in small quantities by individual collectors for the needs of local pharmacies( under licenses).Licorice plowing planta plow. The excavated plants are shaken off the ground, separated from the stems. Choose only healthy roots and rhizomes that have a yellow color in the fracture. Roots are from 7 to 50 mm in thickness, and rhizomes - 7-150 mm. Some of the roots are dried in the sun, folding them into loose piles, and the other part is first cleaned of cork, and then dried. Drying can be carried out in dryers at a temperature of 50-60 °, until the roots become fractured, and not bent. The dried raw material is compressed by a hydraulic press in bales and is stretched across in four places by a steel packing tape.
Licorice is included in the Red Book of the USSR.This is explained by the fact that although thickets and stocks of licorice naked and Urals in our country are large, harvesting it is carried out in the amount of 10-11 thousand tons per year, and the productivity of thickets can be significantly reduced. Therefore, only 75% of the plants are harvested in this area, the soil after harvesting is leveled and harvested, and the second harvest is made in this place only after 6-8 years.
Medicinal raw materials. Finished raw materials - rhizomes and roots, called licorice root - Radix Glycyrrhizae, seu radix Liquiritiae, can be of two kinds. The raw materials for pharmacies and the food industry are whole cored roots and roots of cylindrical shape, of different lengths, 0.5 cm to 5 cm thick and thicker. Outdoors, they are light yellow to brownish-yellow with slight cork residues. Fracture is light yellow.
Uncleaned raw material from the outside is covered with a thin light or grayish-brown stopper. The thickness of the roots is 7-50 mm, and the rhizome - 7-150 mm.
In the fracture both the peeled and unrefined roots are fibrous. The smell is peculiar, taste sweet and sweet, slightly irritating.
Unrefined raw materials often come in cut form, which is convenient for the preparation of dosage forms, and especially the fees, and is used for the preparation of extracts and other medicaments.
GOST 22839-77 admits: the moisture of untreated roots and rhizomes of licorice is not more than 12%;flabby,
in the break of dark brown roots and rhizomes with kidneys, roots of white color, as well as organic impurity not more than 4%, mineral - not more than 2%.
Art.573 ГФ X admits: in the cleared roots of moisture no more than 14%, ash not more than 6%;roots, poorly cleaned of cork, not more than 15%;yellowed and browned from the surface, but light yellow in the fracture of the roots no more than 20%;organic and mineral impurities not more than 0.5%.Extractants extracted by 0.25% ammonia solution should be at least 25%, and glycyrrhizic acid content should be at least 6%.
Chemical composition. Licorice root contains up to 23% of glycyrrhizin saponin, which is a mixture of potassium and calcium salts of glycyrrhizic acid. This tribasic acid is a glycoside, which during acid hydrolysis cleaves triterpene-glycyrrhetinic acid as genine, and two glycuronic acid molecules as glycine. Glycyrrhizin has a sugary and sweet taste, it is 40 times sweeter than sugar beet. In addition, there are 27 flavonoids, including liquiditritin, rhamnoliquiritin, ramenoisoliquiritin, liquid ritoside, isokvetsitrin, rutin, saponarethin, lycouroside, uraloside, astragaline, glycerol, nikitiflorin, isoglobroside, neolikviritin, etc.; sterols, asparagine, free glycyrrhetinic acid;coumarins - geri-narin and umbelliferone;10-30 mg% of vitamin C and other compounds.
Action and application. Glycyrrhizinic and glycyrrhetinic acids have a hormone-like effect, regulating water-salt metabolism: they retard sodium ions and increase the release of potassium ions through the kidneys. With long-term use, licorice products can disrupt the electrolyte-water balance and lead to the formation of edema. However, unlike corticosteroids, licorice does not suppress the function of the adrenal cortex, but, on the contrary, stimulates the production of its own hormones.
Glycyrrhizin has an expectorant, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, diuretic and laxative effect.
Licoroda flavonoids are characterized by a diuretic, spasmolytic, holinolitic, weak antihistamine action and antiulcer activity.
Dry extract of licorice - Extractum Glycyrrhizae siccum, seu Liquiritiae - appoint as a 10% solution of 1 teaspoon 3-4 times a day as an expectorant. For the same purpose, the thoracic elixir, popularly known as the "drops of the Danish king", is more often used. The breast elixir is included in the composition of expectorant medicines, especially in children's practice, since it has a sweet taste and a pleasant smell. Children are happy to take medicines with licorice.
Licorice root powder and extract are used to prepare the pills.
A mixture of root flavonoids is available in tablets - liquidoriton for 0.1 g. Has antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory and moderate antacid properties. It is prescribed for exacerbation of peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum, with chronic and erosive gastritis with a hyperacid function of the stomach. Ammonium salts of glycyrrhizin and glycyrrhetinic acids - glycyrs are prescribed for the treatment of bronchial asthma, allergic dermatitis.
According to our observations( VI Popov), a decoction of a mixture of cut licorice root and horsetail grass( 50 g of one and the other raw materials per 3 liters of water) works well in the treatment of chronic alcoholism.1 glass of broth is drunk 10-15 minutes before meals. In this case, the desire to drink is easier to tolerate.