Ukrainian name – sea buckthorn buckthorn, popular name – golden tree.
The sucker family – Elaeagnhceae.
The fruits are used for medicinal purposes.
Under natural conditions, it grows in Eastern and Western Siberia, the southern regions of the European part of the USSR, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. In Ukraine, it is grown as an ornamental plant, a culture has begun in forestry.
The plant is dioecious, female specimens bear fruit from 2-3 years of age.
Sea buckthorn is a branched shrub or tree up to 4 m in height. The bark of trunks is grayish-brown, young branches are silvery or rusty-brown; thorns form on shortened shoots. Leaves 2-8 cm long, alternate, short-petiolate, linear-lanceolate, entire, dark green above, brownish-silver below from stellate scales. Flowers are unisexual. Staminate (male) flowers with four stamens, collected in short spikelets, have a dark brown, two-petalled flower within. Pistillate flowers 2-5 in the axils of the branches. They have a tubular, greenish flower within, a unilocular ovary and a protruding elongated stigma. Fruits are spherical or oval drupes up to 1 cm in length, juicy, fragrant, orange-red in color on short legs, as if sticking around the branches.
Blooms in May. The fruits ripen in September – October and remain on the tree all winter.
Fruits are harvested after ripening on frosty days (November-December). Tarpaulins, bast cloth or paper are laid under the trees, and the frozen fruits are carefully upholstered or shaken off with sticks from the branches, cleaning the leaves and stem parts of the plant from impurities.
It is not allowed to cut or break branches with fruits.
Fruits are transported in solid containers (wooden barrels with a capacity of up to 150 liters, boxes, baskets, buckets), frozen can be in bags weighing up to 70 kg. They can be stored frozen for up to 6 months, fresh ones are processed without delay.
According to FS – 1052-76, raw materials consist of fresh, ripe, juicy, spherical or oval fruits 4-12 mm long, with or without a stalk and with one stone. The color is yellow or dark orange. The taste is sweet and sour. The smell is weak, reminiscent of the smell of pineapple. Humidity is not higher than 87%.
In raw materials, no more than (percent) is allowed: unripe fruits – 1, damaged by pests – 2, other plant organs – 1, crushed fruits and juice from them – 35, mineral impurities – 0.5.
The content of carotenoids should not be less than 10 mg%, total ash should not exceed 1%. The fruits contain vitamins C, B 1 , B 2 , Be, E, P, A, all kinds of carotenoids, 8-13% fatty oil, sugar, organic acids. The fatty oil is red-orange in color and contains vitamins A, B, E. It is used as an anti-inflammatory, wound healing, vitamin remedy for burns, including radiation injuries, gastric and duodenal ulcers, and in gynecological practice.
Fruits are highly valued as a vitamin raw material in the food industry.