Hellebore Lobel (Veratrum Lobelianum Bernh.)

Hellebore Lobel is a herbaceous perennial representing the Lily family (Liliaceae). Other names: puppeteer, censer, spinning top, chimer

Description:

Tall perennial herbaceous plant with a thick short rhizome with numerous roots and a thick stem up to 1.5 m in height. The stem is densely covered with sheaths of sessile, spirally arranged leaves. The leaves are large, broadly elliptical, pointed, with prominent veins, glabrous above, downy below, folded. The flowers are small, numerous, collected in a large apical paniculate inflorescence, monoecious, on short pedicels. The perianth is yellowish-green, with 6 star-shaped leaflets, 6 stamens, the upper ovary is hairy, the fruit is a multi-seeded box, the seeds are winged, brown, flattened. It blooms in June – August. It is not often found in lowland and floodplain meadows.

Harvesting, description of raw materials:

Dried rhizomes with roots – Rhizoma cum radicibus Veratri – are used as medicinal raw materials. They are harvested in the fall, when the aerial part begins to die off, less often in early spring. Dug out rhizomes with roots are cleaned from the ground, washed with cold water and dried in warm, well-ventilated areas. To speed up drying, thick rhizomes are cut lengthwise. Dried raw materials are rhizomes or pieces of them with numerous adventitious roots, closely pressed to each other at the base and almost completely covering the rhizome from the sides and bottom. The rhizome is vertical, oblong-conical, thick, 2-8 cm long, 1.5-3 cm thick, dark brown outside, grayish-white at the break; the roots are thin, cylindrical, 10-20 cm long, 2-3 mm thick, longitudinally wrinkled, straw-yellow on the outside, also grayish-white at the break.you should try carefully, as it is very poisonous, if you have no experience in collecting poisonous plants – BETTER RESTAIN! ). There is no smell, but the dust formed during the pouring and grinding of raw materials causes irritation of the mucous membranes and sneezing.

Contains active substances:

All parts of the plant contain alkaloids: rhizomes up to 1.3%, roots up to 2.4%, grass up to 0.55%. Of the alkaloids in Lobel’s Hellebore, the amino alcohol yervine and the glycoalkaloid pseudoyerwin were found, etc.

Medicinal use:

Currently, due to the high toxicity of its products, hellebore is used to a limited extent in medical practice. Hellebore tincture and hellebore water is used as an insecticidal agent, especially in veterinary medicine; a decoction of roots and rhizomes is used in veterinary medicine as a digestive aid (to enhance chewing gum in cattle), as an emetic for pigs and dogs, an infusion of roots and rhizomes is used for hypodermatosis in cattle; the extract has an anti-scabies effect; hellebore infusion can be used against pests of fruit and berry crops. In the past, hellebore in the form of an ointment was used in medicine as an external pain reliever for neuralgia and against scabies. In folk medicine, roots are used, from which either an aqueous extract or vodka tincture is prepared. Drink drops for stomach pains

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