Barberry
Latin name barberry - Berberis - associated with the Greek "Berbers - the pearl, which, in turn, is derived from the Arabic" Burbury "- shell and characterizes the shape of flower petals.Branches and roots of this plant in fracture have a bright lemon yellow. This coloring makes them contained therein alkaloid berberine - one of the few colored alkaloids. The presence of this alkaloid in the barberry has long been known, but it almost never used in medicine. On the branches in the axils of the tripartite spines sit short shoots with a pencil obovate sharply serrated leaves. Yellow flowers with distinctive petals rakovinoobraznymi collected in drooping brush. Berries oval, red, very acid, with 2-3 oblong seeds.
Barberry was known in ancient times: it was known as a medicinal plant in ancient Babylon and India ... In the Assyrian library of inscriptions on clay tablets, made over 650 years before Christ, the fruit of barberry are referred to as a means of "purifying the blood." In the Middle Ages, fruits and roots of barberry widely used in jaundice, scurvy and other diseases. "Fresh barberry consumed in juice form. Barberry has antidotal properties. Lotions are used to from the barberry resorption of solid tumors. Insist it prevents nausea and vomiting ... "- said Mahzen-Ul-Adviey in" Treasury of drugs. " Currently it is used in many countries. For example, in Bulgaria, for example, infusion of leaves is used for dysentery in India - as an astringent, in England - as a styptic, and fruits - as a tonic, in Germany the fruits consumed in diseases of the throat and open wounds in the form of rinses. In Russia from barberry prepared syrups, juices, jellies, jams, used as a pleasant sour seasoning for fish and meat dishes. In the East, the dried fruit is always added to the traditional pilaf.
Addition of berberine, species of barberry contain other alkaloids: in the Amur barberry them another 7, and barberry ordinary - 10. In the shoots of barberry ordinary discovered saponins, and in the leaves - vitamins C and E, carotene, malic and citric acid in the bark and roots contain tannins. Most contain berberine in barberry roots of the ordinary: up to 1 percent, and in the cortex of roots - 1,5 percent. Berberine isolated in pure form and in the form of sulfate salts - berberine bisulfate - allowed to use as a choleretic agent in cholecystitis and cholelithiasis. Berberine - one of the alkaloids are widely distributed in the plant world: in addition to barberry, it contains many plants from other families, in particular, he has a bast Amur velvet (family Rutaceae) grown in the Far East.
Now widely barberry used in science and in medicine: use its leaves and roots and cosmetic purposes. Thanks to the rich content of the complex of active ingredients of barberry drugs used in cosmetics in the form of infusion and decoction as an antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, tonic and stimulant. Prescribe medications to strengthen the barberry and hair growth, and pigment spots, freckles and acne with oily oily face and cross-Boraine dermatitis, as well as a means of toning flabby skin.
When harvesting roots, first chop all stalks and their bases, then break through the soil around the bush at a radius of 0.5 meters and a depth of about 0,5-0,6 m; begin digging from the trunk to the periphery. After that, the roots of uprooted by hand, pick up at this fine roots and bark, as the loss of these units reduce the amount of berberine in the feed. You can not dig up the root system completely. In addition, you must leave intact at least one of barberry shrub for every 10 square meters of its thickets. In place of the destroyed instance barberry should plant it root stalk length of 10-15 centimeters. This will speed up recovery after the thickets of the workpiece. In order to preserve the natural thickets of barberry repeated harvesting at one place can produce no more than 10-15 years. Unearthed roots carefully shake off the ground, thus removing the blackened, rotten parts and other impurities. Washing roots in water is impossible, as well berberine in it dissolves, and therefore lost during washing. When harvesting root bark peels off easily with them, so you need underlay tarp or mat. Roots thicker than 6 inches in diameter, sawing or chopping into pieces of length 10-20 inches, and then cuts another longitudinally. Raw material is dried in a well ventilated area, under the eaves or in the dryer at a temperature of 45-50 œ C. Shelf life of raw materials for 3 years.