Common name: gourd.
CHERNOGOLOVKA ORDINARY (Prunella vulgaris L.)Perennial plant of the labiaceae family (Lamiaceae), up to 60 cm high, glabrous or not often pubescent, with a creeping rhizome. Stem ascending, tetrahedral, brown, slightly branched. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, ovate, obtuse, entire or small-edged, the upper pair of leaves is placed directly under the inflorescence. The flowers are symmetrical, placed in the axils of ovate, pointed bracts and form an apical false ear. Corolla blue-violet, rarely yellow-white, with pubescent upper lip. The fruit is an oblong-ovoid or trihedral shiny nutlet. Blossoms in June – September, fruits ripen in July – October. It grows on moist and drier soils, meadows, pastures, grassy slopes, forest edges, along roads, in bushes, along river banks, in gardens. Found in various plant communities.
COLLECTION AND DRYING OF RAW MATERIALS
For medicinal purposes, the common blackhead grass is used, which is harvested during the flowering period. Dry in the air under awnings, in well-ventilated rooms or in dryers at a temperature not exceeding 40°C. When harvesting, it must be distinguished from the large-flowered blackhead [Prunella grandiflora (L.) Jacq.], which is not often found, which differs in that the upper pair of leaves is not located at the base of the inflorescence, but is pushed down, also by larger flowers.
PHARMACOLOGICAL PROPERTIES
The plant has hypotensive, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, diuretic, antiseptic properties, increases metabolism.
APPLICATIONS IN MEDICINE
Aerial part or whole plant. In folk medicine, decoction, infusion – for goiter, sore throat, inflammation of the upper respiratory tract, cough, stomach pain, bloody diarrhea, heart disease, epilepsy, diabetes, diphtheria; externally in the form of baths – with exudative diathesis; in the form of rinses – for diseases of the throat; in the form of lotions – for skin rashes, furunculosis, abscesses, stomatitis, gingivitis. In folk medicine in Western Europe – for diseases of the throat; in Chinese medicine – for skin tuberculosis and goiter; in Korean – with inflammatory diseases of the bladder and urethra, with whites, lymphoma, chronic arthritis, hypertension, they are also applied to places of bruises and injuries. CONTRAINDICATIONS AND POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS: the plant is poisonous,