A perennial (one- or two-year-old in culture) herbaceous plant of the cruciferous family. The stem is straight, simple or branched, woody at the base, covered, like the whole plant, with pressed bipartite hairs, 40-100 cm high. Swallows alternate, lanceolate, pointed, entire-edged or have 1-2 teeth on the edges. The flowers are bisexual, regular, fragrant, 4-petalled, gathered in panicles; petals are golden yellow, dark yellow or red-brown, 15-30 mm long. The fruit is a pod. Blooms in July – September.
Spread. It grows wild in the Mediterranean Sea, wild in the Crimea. It is grown in rooms and flower gardens as an ornamental plant.
Raw material . Fresh or dried flowers and leaves and seeds are used for medicinal purposes. The leaves are collected during the flowering period of the plant.
The plant is unofficial .
Chemical composition . Lacfioli flowers contain essential oil (0.06%), flavonoids (quercetin, isorhamnetin), myrosin enzyme. The leaves and seeds contain cardiac glycosides keirotoxin and keiroside (0.015% in seeds). In addition, the seeds contain fatty oil (20-26%) and thioglycoside glycopyroline (1.5%), during hydrolysis of which mustard oil is released.
Pharmacological properties and use. The use of a tincture of fresh leaves and seeds of the garden lacfiola in heart failure has been tested. It was found that keirotoxin has the ability to increase the amplitude of heart contractions and slow down its rhythm. The flowers of the plant have a diuretic, choleretic, laxative, pain-relieving and anticonvulsant effect. In domestic and foreign folk medicine, an infusion of flowers is used internally for dropsy, jaundice and chronic constipation, to prevent apoplectic stroke and paralysis; infusion of flowers and leaves – in case of heart failure, as an anticonvulsant and pain reliever, as a means that conditions and intensifies menstruation. For rheumatic and gouty pains, poultices of flowers and leaves and rubbing with an infusion of fresh flowers on sunflower oil are used. Infusion of flowers wash the eyes with conjunctivitis and lacrimation, wash the face, to destroy the swallows. A fine powder of dry flowers, mixed in equal amounts with powdered sugar, is blown into the eyes to dissolve the pain.
Medicinal forms and applications . Internally – infusion of flowers (infuse 1 teaspoon of fresh flowers in 200 ml of boiling water for 20 minutes, strain) 1 tablespoon 3 times a day.