Snake knotweed (Poligonum bistorta L.)

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:44

Perennial plant highlander serpentine, popularly called serpentine or crayfish necks, grows in the European part of Russia, Eastern and Western Siberia. The most favorable conditions for its growth are moisture and high acidity of the soil, therefore thickets of the serpentine are often found in swampy grassy meadows. This beautiful plant feels great among the shrubs of alpine meadows. Often grass snake mountaineer adorns forest edges.

Description and chemical composition

Herbaceous plant, reaching a height of 100 centimeters, has a thick woody rhizome, turning pink at the break and black-brown outside. A sharply curved root, covered with numerous adventitious roots, resembles a snake in shape. Leaves are alternately arranged on a rather high knotty stem of a plant

oblong shape with slightly wavy or flat edges. In addition to stem leaves, snake mountaineer (photo shown) has larger basal toythe same elongated shape. In May-June, small pale pink flowers bloom, collected in spike-shaped dense inflorescences. Fruits ripen in July - smooth, trihedral dark brown nuts.

As a raw material for the preparation of medicines, the rhizomes of the mountaineer, curved in the form of a snake, are used, which are harvested most often in September-October, when the aerial parts of the plant die off, or with the onset of spring. It is during these periods that the rhizomes contain the greatest amount of useful chemical compounds: tannins and starch, as well as catechins, ascorbic acid, ellagic and gallic acids, calcium oxalate and others. The plant contains flavonoid glycosides - hyperoside, avicularin, quercetin and rutin. Hydroxycinnamic acids (chlorogenic, protocatechuic, coffee, ascorbic, gallic) were found in the stem and leaves.

Highlander snake drugs: pharmacological properties and application

Highlander snake - a plant from which medicines are made that have anti-inflammatory, hemostatic, astringent, antimicrobial and soothing properties. In medicine, low-toxic serpentine preparations are used to treat intestinal diseases, diarrhea, internal bleeding, and bladder diseases. Highlander snake is part of the preparations used in dental practice. With the help of this plant, stomatitis, gingivitis and other diseases of the oral cavity are treated.

Highlander snake: use in traditional medicine

In the arsenal of fundsof alternative medicine, infusions, decoctions, a liquid extract based on the coil, as well as rhizome powder, occupy a special place. For example, the rhizome of the mountaineer infused with dry white wine (20 g of rhizome per 1 liter of wine) is taken in small doses for poisoning.

With colitis, it is recommended to drink a glass of decoction in four doses every day for 2-3 weeks, in the preparation of which rhizome powder (50 g) and 5 liters of dry red wine are used. Wine and powder are boiled for 10 minutes in an enamel pan and cooled.

Highlander snake is an effective remedy for bleeding. In order for the hemostatic properties of the plant to be fully manifested, take about 1 gram of rhizome powder of the snake mountaineer three times a day.