NETTLE HEMP (cannabis)
Perennial herbaceous plant with thick creeping rhizome and erect stem up to 120 cm tall. The leaves are large, palmately dissected, serrated on petioles. The flowers are inconspicuous, often monocotyledonous, the female flowers are collected in dense bunches in the axils of the upper leaves, the male flowers are in the axils of the middle leaves. The whole plant is very pungent. Blooms in the second half of June and July. The fruit is a nut.
Distributed mainly in the forest-steppe and partly steppe zones of Siberia, in Kazakhstan. Grows in steppe meadows, rocky slopes of hills and small mountains, within habitation.
The chemical composition is similar to stinging nettle. Contains a lot of chlorophyll, ascorbic acid, proteins, traces of alkaloids, ammonium carbonate, glycoside, lecithin, phytoncides, secretin enzyme, formic and gallus acids.
Nettle leaves liquid extract is used for anemia, acute and chronic enteritis, diarrhea in tuberculosis patients, uterine and intestinal bleeding. Vitamin concentrates are prepared from the leaves. Nettle preparations affect carbohydrate metabolism, have a diuretic, anti-inflammatory, hemostatic effect.
In folk medicine, it is used as an antirheumatic, anti-febrile, lactic, hemostatic and anthelmintic agent. Outwardly – for the treatment of wounds and abscesses. The wound healing effect is obviously due to chlorophyll and phytoncides.