Highland Serpent (Poligonum bistorta L.)

Perennial plant snake mountaineer, called in the people by a serpentine or crayfish neck, grows in the European part of Russia, Eastern and Western Siberia. The most favorable condition for its growth is moistness and high soil acidity, so thickets of serpentine often occur in boggy grassy meadows. This beautiful plant feels great among the bushes of alpine meadows. Often, the grass snake mountaineer adorns the forest edges.

Description and chemical composition

The herbaceous plant, reaching a height of 100 centimeters, has a thick, woody rhizome, pink in the fracture and black and brown outside. The sharply curved root, covered with numerous accessory roots, resembles a snake in shape. On a fairly high knotty stem of the plant alternately arranged leaves Oblong form with slightly wavy or flat edges. In addition to the stem leaves, the snake mountaineer (pictured) has larger radicals of the same elongated shape. In May-June small pale pink flowers bloom in spicate dense inflorescences. In July fruit ripens - smooth trihedral nuts of dark brown color.

As a raw material for the preparation of medicines, the mountaineer rhizomes 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, or with the onset of spring. It is at these times that the rhizomes contain in 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, aviculary, quercetin and rutin. In the stem and leaves were found oxycinnamic acids (chlorogenic, protocatechovaya, coffee, ascorbic, gallic).

Preparations of mountaineer snake: pharmacological properties and application

Highlander snake is a plant from which medicinal products are produced, which have anti-inflammatory, hemostatic, astringent, antimicrobial and soothing properties. In medicine, low-toxic coil preparations are used to treat bowel diseases, diarrhea, internal bleeding, and bladder diseases. The mountaineer snake is part of the drugs used in dental practice. With the help of this plant, stomatitis, gingivitis and other diseases of the oral cavity are treated.

Highlander snake: application in folk medicine

In the arsenal of alternative medicine, a special place is occupied by infusions, decoctions, a liquid extract based on a serpentine, and also a powder of rhizome. For example, the rhizome rhizome infused with white wine (20 g rhizome per 1 liter of wine) is taken in small doses for poisoning.

When colitis is recommended for 2 - 3 weeks every day to drink four receptions a glass of broth, the preparation of which uses a powder of rhizome (50 g) and 5 liters of dry red wine. Wine and powder are boiled for 10 minutes in an enamel saucepan and cooled.

A snake mountaineer is an effective remedy for bleeding. To the hemostatic properties of the plant showed up to the full, three times a day take about 1 gram of powder of the rhizome of the snake mountaineer.