Highlander pepper (water pepper) – polygonum hydropiper l.
Popular names: pepper mustard, frog grass, pepper buckwheat.
Botanical characteristic. Buckwheat family. An annual herbaceous plant. The stem is erect, up to 60 cm high, knotty, often reddish, with membranous tubes covering the stem. The leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate, slightly pubescent. The flowers are small green or whitish-pink, densely studded with glands, collected in a rare drooping, intermittent and narrow raceme. The fruit is a trihedral grain. The plant has a characteristic bitter-pepper taste, which distinguishes it from other types of knotweed. Blooms in June – August (Fig. 15).
Spreading. It grows throughout the entire territory of the Soviet Union along the banks of rivers, lakes, ditches, in damp places and wet meadows, like a weed in vegetable gardens.
Medicinal raw materials. The stem, leaves and flowers collected during flowering have medicinal properties. The tops of the plant up to 45 cm long without coarse lower stems are cut with a sickle and immediately dried, laying out in a loose layer on a bedding under a canopy, in attics or in a ventilated room. Keep up to 2 years. The plant is poisonous!
Chemical composition. The herb contains essential oil, up to 3.8% tannins, organic acids (acetic, formic, valeric), up to 2.5% flavonoids (rhamnasin, rutin, quartzetin, etc.), carotene, vitamins A, C, K and others connections.
Pharmacological properties and Application. The plant is used as a hemostatic agent, also to increase blood clotting and reduce vascular permeability. Water pepper grass is used in obstetric and gynecological practice for uterine bleeding in postpartum, subinvolution of the uterus, for bleeding from small vessels and capillaries of the stomach, intestines, and sometimes with diarrhea. Assign inside in the form of infusion: pigs 1-5 g, dogs 0.5-2 g.
The industry produces a liquid extract of water pepper, which is a clear, greenish-brown liquid with an aromatic odor and a bitter taste. Doses of the extract: pigs 0.5-2 g, dogs 0.2-1 g.