Hop

Hutnulus lupulus L.

The hemp family is Cannabaceae

 

What does it look like? Perennial cultivated and wild dioecious plant. Every year, long (sometimes up to 18 m) winding, usually hexagonal, hollow stems grow from the rhizomes in the spring, which die in the winter. The leaves are ovate, three- and five-lobed, large-serrated, rough. Male flowers are greenish-white, collected in a panicled inflorescence. Female – egg-shaped cones. Blooms in June – July.

Where does it grow? It grows in the wild in Polissia, in the Carpathians, in the Carpathians, in the forest-steppe, occasionally in the steppe, in river floodplains overgrown with shrubs, over cliffs, in valleys, in forest glades. Hops are widely cultivated in the western part of Ukraine.

What and when are collected? Cones in August – September.

When is it used? For medicinal purposes, cones are used, which contain hopulic and valeric acids, trimethylamine, volatile oil (humulene, linalool), bitters and resins (humulone, lu-pulene), flavonoids (quercetin, quercitrin, kaempferol), wax, dyes, lupulin – bactericidal substance. Hop cones are used in the brewing industry. Its leaves contain substances that have estrogenic activity. The plant is a means that enhances digestion, antidiarrheal, anthelmintic, diuretic (soothes painful irritation of the bladder), pain reliever, is used in acute and chronic calculous pyelonephritis caused by the presence of stones in the urinary tract, as a hypnotic, to relieve spasms. Used for nervous overwork, neurasthenia.

It is used as a soothing tea. Use 1 tablespoon 3-4 times a day, 10-20 g of infusion of crushed pine cones per 200 ml of boiling water or 100 ml (half a cup) 2 times a day in a steam of 1 tablespoon of crushed pine cones in 200 ml of boiling water. A pillow filled with hop cones helps with insomnia . For this purpose, they also drink 1 glass of warm steam at night from 2 teaspoons of crushed cones, taken in 1 glass of boiling water. For insomnia, atherosclerosis with symptomatic hypertension, baths made from a decoction of hop cones are used.

In case of excessive sexual arousal (painful erection, pollution), use 3 glasses per day of an infusion of 20 g of cones per 1 liter of boiling water. Instead of infusions, you can use a tincture of 1 part of cones in 4 parts of alcohol, 5-7 drops in sugar or water, in the morning and before going to bed.

It is used externally in the form of poultices as a pain reliever for diseases of the joints and in clogged areas and in ointments for the treatment of painful ulcers that do not heal for a long time. When hair falls out, wash your head with a decoction of hop cones.

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