(Pallas) R eh d. The Ukrainian name is securinega kushchista.
Euphorbiaceae family – Euphorbiaceae.
For therapeutic purposes, leaves and young tops of shoots with buds, flowers and fruits are used.
It grows wild in the Primorsky Territory and Eastern Siberia in the Amur region. In Ukraine, it is grown in parks as an ornamental plant. Experimental nurseries have been founded at research and educational institutions in the forest-steppe and steppe regions. Plantings are used for decades, starting from the first year of the plant’s life.
Securinega semi-shrub – dioecious, branched, multi-stemmed shrub up to 3 m high. Ribbed stems. The bark of annual shoots is green, older ones have a brown tint, older ones are gray. Leaves up to 7 cm long, 0.7-3.5 cm wide, alternate, short-petiolate, elliptical, entire, yellow-green with curved down edges. The flowers are unisexual, axillary with a cup-shaped, five-petalled greenish corolla up to 2 mm long. Stamen flowers with 5-6 stamens on pedicels up to 6 mm long in bunches of 2-15 pcs. Pistillate flowers are often solitary on pedicels up to 1 cm long, pistil with a three-celled ovary and a three-lobed stigma. The fruit is a three-celled, squeezed from above, round, dry box with six seeds. Seeds up to 2 mm long, obtusely trihedral, brownish, leathery.
Blooms in June – July. The fruits ripen in August – September.
Raw materials are harvested in June – September, young shoots up to 3 mm thick with leaves, flowers in different phases of development and fruits.
Cut as it grows 2-3 times per season with knives, secateurs at a height of 15-20 cm from the soil plane. Separate yellowed leaves and thick lignified stems. Dry without delay, spreading a loose thin layer on a tarpaulin or matting, nets under awnings, in dryers at a temperature of 50-60 °. Raw materials are periodically turned over, separating the yellowed parts. The end of drying is determined by the fragility of branches and wrinkled bark.
The yield is up to 2 t/ha.
According to FS 42-100-72, the raw material consists of young non-lignified shoots up to 3 mm in diameter with leaves, buds, flowers and fruits. Stems yellowish-green or brownish with wrinkled bark. The leaves are green, the flowers are greenish-yellow, the fruits and seeds are brownish. The smell is weak, the taste is not determined – poisonous! Moisture not more than 14%.
Not more than (percent) is allowed in raw materials: parts of a plant of a different color 8, stems thicker than 3 mm (lignified) – 2, stems thinner than 3 mm – 28, crushed parts (passing through a sieve with a hole diameter of 2 mm) 12, organic and mineral impurities – 1 each. The content of securinin is required not less than 0.1%.
Packed in bags of 25 kg or bales of 40-50 kg.
Stored in a group of toxic potent raw materials in dry, well-ventilated areas in a packaged form on undercarriages or racks. Storage period up to 4 years.
Raw materials contain alkaloids (securinin up to 0.4%, etc.). The product securinin nitrate is obtained and used as a means of stimulating the central and autonomic nervous system in case of motor disorders, paralysis, general weakness, hypotension.