Elecampane is a perennial herbaceous plant from the Asteraceae family. Other names: elecampane, divosil, meadow aman, oman
Description:
Tall perennial herbaceous plant with a stem reaching 1.5-2 m in height, with a thick brown rhizome, and rather longish roots extending from it and with large wrinkled leaves. Basal leaves on petioles are the largest; middle and upper sessile, gradually decreasing; all leaves are oblong-elliptical, with a pointed apex, unequally toothed along the edge, covered with short velvety felt from below. The flowers are collected in rather large golden-yellow baskets, one at a time at the top of the branches and the main stem, forming a loose paniculate inflorescence in general. The involucre is imbricate-many-leaved, the leaves are recurved, the outer ones are velvety; marginal flowers with a yellow narrow tongue up to 3 cm long, toothed at the top; median flowers are tubular, with a tuft; achenes have the shape of an elongated prism, equipped with a tuft of serrated hairs. Elecampane high blooms in June-August. Elecampane high is bred in gardens as a medicinal and ornamental plant; on the outskirts of towns and villages is found in a feral state.
Workpiece:
With a medicinal purpose, the root of the devil is used – Radix Inulae. It is traditionally harvested in autumn or early spring. Dug out rhizomes with roots are cleaned from the ground and washed with water. Rhizomes and thick roots are cut into pieces up to 20 cm long, and also longitudinally for better drying. Air drying. Dried pieces of rhizomes and roots on the outside have a grayish-brown color and a finely wrinkled surface, and on the inside of the split pieces on a break, they are yellowish-white, matte with yellowish shiny spots, which are receptacles with essential oil. The raw material has a strong aroma, so peculiar that it is its most characteristic feature; bitter-spicy taste.
Contains active substances:
Rhizomes and roots of elecampane contain essential oil (up to 3%), inulins (up to 44%), traces of alkaloids and saponins. The essential oil solidifies into a yellowish crystalline mass called gelenin, which is a mixture of sesquiterpenes, the main part of which is alantolactone, which acts on ascaris 25 times stronger than santonin. The leaves contain folic acid (vitamin B).
Medicinal use:
Currently, elecampane root is used in medical practice in the form of a decoction as an expectorant for acute chronic respiratory diseases; recommend elecampane high in pulmonary tuberculosis and bronchial catarrh with a large secretion of mucus. Essential oil as an anthelmintic. If in medical practice the use of elecampane is rather limited, then in folk medicine it is one of the most popular medicinal plants. Root tincture on vodka is considered the best remedy for gastric diseases – gastritis, ulcers. They drink vodka tincture, sprinkle fried eggs with elecampane root powder and eat with diseases caused by weight lifting; drink tincture of vodka for pulmonary tuberculosis; inside or outside with sciatica; nervous diseases, goiter; with a duodenal ulcer, they drink one tablespoon of vodka tincture and then take 2-3 tablespoons of pork fat; vodka tincture is drunk for heart disease, colds, high blood pressure, toothache; a decoction of flowers is drunk as tea for suffocation; they drink a decoction of the roots and wash their hair from a tangle; drink with uterine pain, exhaustion; root powder is overcooked with pork fat and applied on a linen cloth to tumors and wounds; fresh leaves are applied to erysipelas, scrofulous, ulcers, tumors; water decoction for stomach and chest pains, emaciation, root with lard from scabies. a decoction of flowers is drunk as tea for suffocation; they drink a decoction of the roots and wash their hair from a tangle; drink with uterine pain, exhaustion; root powder is overcooked with pork fat and applied on a linen cloth to tumors and wounds; fresh leaves are applied to erysipelas, scrofulous, ulcers, tumors; water decoction for stomach and chest pains, emaciation, root with lard from scabies. a decoction of flowers is drunk as tea for suffocation; they drink a decoction of the roots and wash their hair from a tangle; drink with uterine pain, exhaustion; root powder is overcooked with pork fat and applied on a linen cloth to tumors and wounds; fresh leaves are applied to erysipelas, scrofulous, ulcers, tumors; water decoction for stomach and chest pains, emaciation, root with lard from scabies.