Useful and medicinal properties of the motherwort.
Family Labotic( Lunar) - Lamiaceae
The generic name comes from two words: the Latin leonis - the lion and the Greek yoke - the tail( due to the distant similarity of the inflorescences with the brush of the lion's tail).Specific definition in translation from Greek means "cordial" - as applied to medicine.
Botanical Description. Perennial herbaceous plant with a woody rhizome, from which numerous accessory roots extend. Stem tetrahedral, erect, 50-150( 200) cm high. Leaves alternately opposite, petiolate, lower in shape rounded or ovate, with heart-shaped base and five-fingered in shape. The upper ones are pointed-elliptical, three-lobed or three-lobed in shape. The flowers are pink, collected at the top of the stem in half-chutes in the sinuses of the upper leaves, forming, especially before flowering, spicate, and in flowering - intermittent inflorescence. The bracts are subulate. Calyx five-tine, corolla bilabiate, upper lip on the outside white-hairy. Stamens four, two of which are shorter than the others. Pistil one with a two-split stigma, ovary anterior, four-lobed. The fruit( it is called a cenobium) consists of four nuts sitting on the bottom of a spheroidal prickly calyx. After flowering, the bracts become very prickly.
Blossoms in June - July. Fruits ripen in July - August.
Geographical spread. As the Russian name shows, the motherwort grows in vacant lots, along fences, near shelter, on weedy places, deposits, on the borders, less often on forest glades, pastures and floodplain meadows. It occurs throughout the European part of the USSR, in the Caucasus, in the south of Western Siberia. The main areas of procurement are in the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, the North Caucasus and in many areas of the southern forest and forest-steppe zones of the European part of the USSR.Cultivated in specialized state farms of medicinal plants.
Collection and drying. Collect aerial parts of plants, cutting the upper parts of the stem up to 40 cm in length and not more than 5 mm in thickness. Collection is carried out at the very beginning of flowering, when the flowers of the lower half-melts have blossomed, and the upper ones are still in the stage of budding. At this time, the raw materials contain the maximum amount of biologically active substances. At a later collection, their content is reduced, and when drying under natural conditions, flowering continues and the grass becomes very prickly. Collecting time usually occurs in the middle zone of the European part of the USSR on June 25-30, and in the Caucasus in the first half of June. After the main collection, additional ones are produced, cutting off or cutting off the formed axillary shoots. After 3-5 years of exploitation of the thickets, an annual break must be made to completely restore them.
Dry in shade or dryers at a temperature of 40-50 °.
Medicinal raw materials. Ready-made raw materials - herb Leonorka( Herba Leonuri) consists of flowering tips up to 40 cm long with leaves and flowers of the structure described above. Flowers in the raw dirty-pink, calyx green, bare, occasionally the lower flowers do not contain a corolla and at the bottom of the cup are immature fruits. The smell is weak, the taste is bitter.
FS 42-2135-83 allows: moisture not more than 13%;ash not more than 12%;browned and yellowed leaves no more than 5%;stems thicker than 5 mm not more than 3%;The organic impurity is not more than 2%, the mineral impurity is no more than 1%.The content of extractives extracted by 70% alcohol should not be less than 15%.
The organic impurity includes parts of other plants, including other leaves of the motherwort that are not allowed to be used. Motherwort Tatar - Leonurus tataricus L. and motherwort leaves - L. glauce-scens Bunge have a pubescent calyx.
Chemical composition. The herbaceous motherwort collected at the beginning of flowering contains up to 0.4% of the alkaloids of leonurin and leonuridine, amine stachydrin, flavonoids( quinqueloside, rutin, quercitin and others), saponins, tannins, organic acids, up to 0.05% essential oil, bitter and sugary substances, carotene.
Action and application. Preparations of Leonurus cardiac have a sedative and hypotensive effect, slow down the heart rate. The action is explained by the presence of alkaloids and flavonoids.
It is used as a tincture - Tinctura Leonuri for 30-40 drops, liquid extract - Extractum Leonuri for 15-20 drops and infused from 15 g of raw material for 200 ml of water - 1 tablespoon 3-4 times a day with cardiac neuroses andincreased nervous excitability. Showing motherwort in the initial stages of hypertension.