Synonyms: pine, pester, pusher, fir tree, pestles, pistils, water pine, pine tree, elk grass, morels, pusher, horsetail, ponytail (Ukrainian pastish, sosoika polova, luskavets, spindlingweed, tіnichka).
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Description. Perennial spore herbaceous plant from the horsetail family (Equisetaceae), with a longish creeping rhizome that goes deep into the soil. Horsetail forms spore-bearing, juicy reddish stems up to 25 cm high, which end in spore-bearing spikelets. After maturation, the stems die off, and instead of them, new green, barren, branched tetrahedral stems up to 50 cm high (without spore-bearing spikelets) are found from the same rhizomes. The branches of these stems, replacing the leaves, diverge star-shaped at each joint, which makes the horsetail look like a small pine.
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Medicinal raw materials : herb.
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Distribution . It grows everywhere, with the exception of deserts and semi-deserts of Central Asia.
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Composition of active substances. Horsetail herb contains several alkaloids (equisetin, nicotine, trimethyloxypyridine, dimethylsulfone), flavonoid equisetrin, saponin, equizetonin, silicic acid, as well as tannins, organic acids, bitterness (Turova, 1967).
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Application. A decoction and liquid extract from the horsetail herb is used as a very effective diuretic for edema due to insufficient blood circulation; in inflammatory processes of the urinary tract and bladder, as well as in heart and other diseases accompanied by congestion. Horsetail is also used as a hemostatic agent for uterine and hemorrhoidal bleeding.
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Horsetail products work especially well in diseases of the kidneys and bladder, since they have, in addition to a diuretic effect, also the ability to dissolve stones in the kidneys and bladder.
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Horsetail is very popular in folk medicine. Apply a decoction of 50 g of grass per 200 g of water (infuse for 20 minutes and take three tablespoons three five times every day).
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Horsetail liquid extract is taken half a teaspoon 46 times every day. Ointment for the treatment of ulcers is prepared from one part of the extract (or condensed broth) and four parts of butter or vaseline (Popov, 1969).
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Collection. They collect grass of barren green summer branched shoots (stems) of horsetails growing in fallow fields, meadows, and crops. (Non-medicinal horsetails growing in bushes, in the forest, in damp places must not be collected.) Cut or pluck vegetative green shoots at the base of the stems (in June-August).
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Drying. Dry the grass in the shade, in attics or in well-ventilated areas. Remove similar species, also impurities.
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Pack . Packed in bales of 50 and 100 kg.
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Storage. Store raw materials in a dry, well-ventilated area on racks or underpacks in a packaged form.
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quality requirements. The finished raw material should consist of dried aerial parts of the plant (straight barren stems) within 30 cm long, with branched shoots of a gray-green color. In the finished grass according to the standard OST / NKVT 7914/377 is allowed: moisture 12%; crushed parts with a length of less than 1 cm 10; organic impurities 5 (including other types of horsetail 4; parts of other plants 1); mineral impurities 0.5%.
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According to the State Pharmacopoeia IX allowed: total ash 25%; mineral impurities 1%.