Kupena medicinal – polygonatum officinale all.
Botanical characteristic. Lily family. Perennial herbaceous plant with a thick, gnarled horizontal rhizome. The stem is straight or curved, glabrous, faceted, leafy, up to 70 cm high. The leaves are alternate, elliptical. Flowers white, drooping. The fruit is a spherical bluish-black berry.
Blooms in May – June.
Spreading. It grows in forests and shrubs, along the edges of birch groves, in meadows, hillsides, in the forest and forest-steppe zones of the European part of the USSR, Siberia, and the Far East.
Medicinal raw materials – grass and rhizome of the plant. The grass is harvested during the flowering period, the rhizome is harvested in the fall. Dry and store according to the general rules.
Chemical composition. The leaves of the plant contain a lot of vitamin C, sugar, mucus; berries – cardiac glycosides inherent in lily of the valley, convallarin and convallatoxin.
pharmacological properties. Kupena belongs to low-poisonous plants, has a sedative effect and stimulates cardiac activity, lowers blood pressure, which is due to an antispasmodic effect on blood vessels (Gorshkov). Infusion and tincture of kupena increase the tone and amplitude of pendulum-like contractions of the intestinal muscles, tone up the contractile function of the scar in ruminants.
Application. A decoction of the rhizome is used for acute bronchitis, pneumonia, colds, an infusion of the herb as an antipyretic. The leaves are sometimes applied to wounds. All parts of the plant have an emetic effect.