Name: Japanese elecampane
Diseases and effects: hemorrhoids.
Active substances: .
Collection time: July – September
Asteraceae family – Compositae\r
A perennial herbaceous plant with a straight, small-ribbed reddish stem up to 1 m high. The upper part of the stem is branched, covered with longish white hairs extending from small tubercles. The leaves are large, elliptical in shape, sessile, with small teeth along the edges, almost bare above, densely pubescent with longish hairs and covered with small glands below. The bracts are lanceolate in shape. The flowers are yellow, form baskets up to 4 cm in diameter, which in turn are collected 5-12 in corymbose inflorescences, under which (on the peduncles) there is a relatively short, woolly, mostly not confused pubescence. Blooms in July – September.\r
Distributed in the Ussuri, Zeya and Bureya basins, also on the South Kuril Islands. It occurs in meadows, swampy lowlands and sparse deciduous forests. Detailed studies of this plant have not been conducted.\r
A decoction of dry flowers of Japanese elecampane is used in the form of enemas and baths as an analgesic and hemostatic agent for hemorrhoids. It has been observed that Japanese elecampane also helps to reduce hemorrhoids.\r
In folk medicine, Japanese elecampane is used as an anti-inflammatory, hemostatic and diuretic. Studies by employees of the Khabarovsk Medical Institute confirmed the information about the diuretic and anti-inflammatory effects of products obtained from this plant (Drake, 1960 and others). Apparently, the anti-inflammatory effect of elecampane japonica is associated, at least in part, with its ability to reduce the permeability of the walls of blood vessels (Kiryutina, 1960). A.3. Tolokneva and A.V. Zvereva (1969) found in experiments on rabbits a distinct wound-healing effect of 10% Japanese elecampane ointment applied to the burned surface.\r
In the European part of Russia, in the Caucasus and in Central Asia, another medicinal plant grows – elecampane high, which is widely used in folk medicine and has been studied in much more detail. Its expectorant, wound-healing, hemostatic, antihelminthic, diuretic and some other types of action are known (Abdullina and co-authors, 1961; Zenin, 1956; Guo Zhen-qiu, 1958, etc.). The question of whether many of these properties are inherent in Japanese elecampane has not been studied.\r
Medicinal raw material is Japanese elecampane herb. It is harvested during flowering, cutting off leafy flower-bearing stems up to 30 cm in length. It is necessary to dry the grass immediately after collection, in the attic or in another well-ventilated room, and in wet weather – in dryers at a temperature of 40-60 °.