Name: Tangut rhubarb – Tangut rhubarb (harvesting and storage)
Tangut rhubarb – Rheum palmatum L. var. tanguticum M a x im . The Ukrainian name is revіn tangutskiy; popular names – finger rhubarb, Chinese rapontik, rabarbar.
The buckwheat family is Polygonaceae.
For medicinal purposes, roots with rhizomes are used.
It grows wild in China. In Ukraine, it is cultivated in the state farms of Soyuzlekrasprom in the central and western forest-steppe regions.
Tangut rhubarb is a perennial herbaceous plant 1–2 m high with a powerful, knotty, dark brown rhizome, up to 6 cm in diameter and 3–9 kg in weight, and fleshy, cylindrical, yellow roots at a break. Stems develop in the second or third year. They are cylindrical, glabrous, finely furrowed, spotted, slightly branched at the apex. Leaves in a rosette up to 1.5 m long. Leaf petioles within 30 cm in length, cylindrical, juicy, reddish on the outside, with a broadly ovate deeply 5-7-lobed plate and a uniformly large-toothed edge. Stem leaves alternate, smaller, with amplexic bells. From the lower plane, the leaves are densely pubescent with hairs. Flowers in large dense panicles up to 50 cm long, numerous, small, on bare pedicels with a six-petaled, pink corolla-like flower within. stamens nine, pistil with three columns and one-celled ovary. The fruit is triangular, with wings along the edges, a red-brown nutlet up to 1 cm long.
Blooms in June-July. The fruits ripen in July-August.
Raw materials are harvested in autumn (September-October) at the age of 3-4 years. They dig rhizomes with roots with tractor plows without a blade, loosening the soil to a depth of 30 cm. Underground organs are cleaned of soil, washed in cold water, the stems and rotten parts are separated with knives, split and cut into pieces up to 15 cm long and 3-4 cm thick, dried in the open air, under sheds or in attics for 3-4 days and dried in dryers at a temperature of 60 °.
The yield is 30-40 c/ha.
It is allowed to harvest raw materials of other types that meet the requirements of the GF USSR X edition.
According to the Global Fund – X Art. 574 raw material consists of pieces of roots and rhizomes up to 3 cm in diameter, dark brown on the outside, yellowish-orange inside with reddish spots and stripes. The smell is peculiar, the taste is bitter-astringent. Humidity is not higher than 12%.
Not more than (percent) is allowed in raw materials: crushed parts passing through a sieve with a hole diameter of 3 mm, pieces blackened in a fracture – 5, organic and mineral impurities – 0.5 each. Oxymethylanthroquinone derivatives should be at least 3.4%.
Packed in wooden boxes lined with paper inside, paper or fabric bags weighing 20-25 kg.
Stored in dry, well-ventilated rooms, packed on pallets or racks. Storage period up to 5 years.
The raw material contains up to 6% hydroxymethylanthraquinoid, rheumemodin, rhein, aloeemodin and within 10% tannoglycosides, derivatives of gallic acid.
It is used in cut form and in powder, also dry extract as a laxative for chronic constipation, in small doses – an astringent. It is part of a complex bitter tincture, syrup and gastric collection.