HOMPHOCARPUS SHRUBS (grub)
Perennial semi-shrub plant 40-150 cm high. Stems numerous, erect, slightly branched, densely leafy. Leaves opposite, lanceolate or lanceolate-linear. Flowers on long stalks, collected in umbellate inflorescences; whisk white. Fruit 2 – uhlistovka; seeds numerous, oblong, brown. Blooms in June-July; seeds ripen in September-October.
Grub is an African plant. It occurs on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus (Poti region) and in Central Asia (Fergana region). Grows on sandy and pebbly river banks, on the coast of the sea, on fallow lands and along ditches.
Medicinal raw materials are seeds and leafy shoots, from which cardiac glycosides are obtained.
Cardiac glycosides were isolated from the seeds of the plant: gofruzide, frugoside, gomfokarpin, etc.
Grub glycosides act on the cardiovascular system more strongly than strophanthus and do not differ from the latter in terms of pharmacodynamics. Thus, the glycoside gomfokarpin has a high biological activity – 9090 KUD per 1 g and effectively restores the decompensation of the cardiovascular system.
Food preparations should be recommended in the treatment of heart failure, accompanied by a decrease in blood pressure and edema; for toning the cardiovascular system as a cardiotonic agent with the type of action of digitalis-strophanthus.