Name: Black currant

 

Black currant (Ribes nigrum L.)

Black currant is a low shrub from the Gooseberry family (Grossulariaceae).

Description:

Shrub up to 2 m in height with brown bare shoots and alternate leaves on pubescent petioles, covered with golden glands. The leaves are 3-5 lobed, unequally serrate at the edges, dark green above, dull, lighter below, slightly pubescent, with numerous dotted golden glands, causing a strong smell of the plant. The flowers are pinkish or lilac-gray, densely pubescent on the outside, on pedicels, collected in drooping loose brushes emerging from the axils of the leaves. The fruit is a black, globular, fragrant berry. Currant blooms in May – June. Black currant grows in swampy forests, along alder huts, river banks, and on the outskirts of swamps. Widespread in culture.

Harvesting, description of raw materials:

Black currant berries and leaves (Fructus et Folia Ribis nigri) are used medicinally. The leaves are harvested in the summer in June – July, collecting only the middle ones and leaving the apical and lower ones so as not to damage the fruiting. The fruits are harvested without stalks, fully ripe in July-August. Berries are dried in attics or outdoors in the shade, preferably in dryers at a temperature of 50-60 ° C, spreading them out in a thin layer. The leaves are also dried outdoors in the shade.

Contains active substances:

The leaves contain essential oil and ascorbic acid (0.25%), in fruits (berries), in addition, organic acids, a small amount of tannins (up to 0.43%), anthocyanin compounds cyanidin and delphinidin, vitamins B, P and carotene.

Medicinal use:

In medical practice, blackcurrant berries and leaves in the form of an infusion are used for hypo- and beriberi. In folk medicine, fresh berries are eaten with high blood pressure, heart disease, liver disease, sclerosis, gastric diseases; they eat fresh berries and drink a decoction for venereal diseases, nervous disorders, drink a decoction of the leaves for high blood pressure, kidney diseases, give a decoction of the branches to drink and bathe babies in it with diathesis, skin tuberculosis, drink a decoction of the branches for severe headaches, from scrofula .