Name: White willow – white willow (veterinary practice)
White willow – salix alba l.
Popular names: willow, silver willow, willow.
Botanical characteristic. Willow family. A large tree up to 20-25 m high, up to 3 m in diameter, with a spreading crown and dark gray bark. The branches are flexible, yellow-green or yellow-red, sometimes more than 2 m long. The leaves are lanceolate, silvery-silky on both sides, rarely bare on top, on short (up to 1 cm) petioles, pointed at the edges, finely serrated. Flowering in April, fruiting in May.
Spreading. It grows in river valleys, mainly along the banks, near water bodies, along roads, in parks, in gardens almost throughout the European part of the USSR, in the Caucasus, in Western Siberia and Central Asia, in the Urals.
Medicinal raw materials. Use tree bark. It is harvested in May – June, when the bark peels off well from the wood. Dry in attics or in well-ventilated areas.
It must be borne in mind that mass collections lead to the death of natural thickets, since the bark is the raw material. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures to preserve the white willow.
When young, when white willow is a young shrub or small tree, it can be confused with other shrub willow species.
Holly willow (willow, krasnotal) differs from white willow in bare branches with a bluish bloom, pale green leaves on the underside and bright green on top. Russian willow has a denser arrangement of leaves with slightly turned down edges.
Willow three-stamen, marsh with smooth bark, peeling off with plates on old trunks, leaves 2-colored, three stamens.
Chemical composition. Willow bark contains tannic (up to 11.5%) and flavonic substances, glycoside salicin, ascorbic acid.
pharmacological properties. Willow bark preparations have astringent, hemostatic, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic effects, as well as choleretic and diuretic. The antipyretic effect is due to the fact that salicin, under the influence of the enzyme salicase, is broken down into glucose and saligenin. The latter is a derivative of salicylic acid.
Application. Willow bark is used as an antipyretic for fever, as an astringent and anti-inflammatory for stomatitis and catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, as a hemostatic agent for gastric bleeding, for diarrhea, catarrh of the stomach, as a diuretic and choleretic agent. Decoctions of the bark (1:10, 1:70) are prescribed to calves inside at a dose of 1 ml / kg. Decoctions of male inflorescences of goat willow are used for inflammation of the kidneys, and a 10% alcohol tincture acts on the heart like foxglove.