parsnip sivny; the common name is parsnips.
Umbelliferae family – Apiaceae (Umbelliferae).
The fruits are used for medicinal purposes.
In Ukraine, it is cultivated everywhere as a food and fodder plant in vegetable gardens, school plots, and in experimental farms. The plant is very variable and is a hybrid form of wild parsnip growing everywhere (except for the Carpathians) – P. sylvestris G a r s.
Parsnip is a biennial (rarely annual) plant 50-150 cm high with a juicy, thick, light brown, spindle-shaped root. The stems are erect (there are up to 2 m in height), ribbed, branched at the top. The leaves are pinnately divided into 3-7 oblong-ovate lobes, serrated along the edge, green above, lighter below from pubescence. Basal leaves are long-petiolate, stem leaves are sessile, vaginal. The inflorescences are a complex umbel with 8-10 pubescent rays. The flowers are golden yellow, the corolla is 5-lobed, the stamens are 5, the ovary is bilocular with two columns. The fruits are brown, dry, round-oval, splitting into two semi-fruits. Semi-fruits are flat, notched at the base with five ribs on the convex side. The whole plant has a spicy flavor.
Blooms in June – July. The fruits ripen in July-August.
Harvested in the same way as other umbrellas.
According to MRTU 42 No. 3943-71, the raw material consists of fruits 4-7 mm long, 3-6 mm wide, traditionally broken up into semi-fruits. The color is light brown. The smell is peculiar, weak. The taste is spicy, slightly pungent. Humidity must be no higher than 10%, ash content no more than 6, furocoumarins content no less than 1%.
In the raw materials, no more than 10 organic impurities are allowed, and no more than 1% mineral impurities.
Packed in bags weighing 30 g.
It is stored in the group of essential oil raw materials in dry, well-ventilated rooms in a packaged form on racks or pedestals. Storage period up to 3 years.
The fruits contain 2.6% furocoumarins (emperatorin, bergapten, isopimpinellin, xanthotoxin, etc.), 3.6% essential oil, flavonoids (hyperin, rutin, pastenoside).
Furocoumarins are used in the form of a beroxan product for vitiligo and nested baldness as a means of increasing the skin’s susceptibility to light. The drug pastinacin – relieves spasms in coronary insufficiency, angina pectoris, kidney and gastrointestinal diseases.
The plant is also used as a spice in cooking.