Useful information

Grindelia - Great Valley Rosehip

Grindelia is powerful

The genus of plants Grindelia, belonging to the Asteraceae family, got its name in honor of the scientist of the Russian Empire, chemist, botanist, doctor and pharmacist, Professor David Grindel (1776–1836), the first Russian natural scientist of Latvian origin.

Genus Grindelia(Grindelia) includes 65 species and represents an extremely diverse array of ecological forms found over a large territory of North America in various habitats. Intermediate forms are common where species overlap. Grindelia is found primarily in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. However, the plant can also be found in the east, across the north coast and around the San Francisco Bay, in the north to the foothills of the Cascade Range, in the west along the Sierra Nevada, and in the south along the southern coast to Baja California. This plant can be found in sandy or saline floodplains, on dry shores, in stony fields, on plains and roadsides. In their historical habitat in the Great Valley, representatives of the genus grindelia grow in a wide variety of habitats, often choosing a niche where other plants are not adapted to survive. They can even grow in highly alkaline soils and are one of the few actively growing plants in the dry Central California summers.

Grindelia at home is almost universally called the Great Valley Rosehip.

Grindelia is a shrub native to central California. It grows from 0.6 to 2.4 m in height, in winter it dies off to the main rosette of leaves, and in spring it again breaks out to the surface from a perennial rhizome. The branched stems are whitish and usually leafy, straight, ascending. The leaves are alternate, lanceolate or ovate in shape, often narrowed towards the base. They have solid or jagged edges, grow up to 3.5 cm in length and 1.2 cm in width (slightly wider at the tip), and are studded with glands that form a sticky resin. Plants bloom with yellow baskets from May to November.

Useful properties of grindelia

 

The Native Americans used the Great Valley Rosehip as a medicinal plant for a variety of diseases, especially respiratory and dermatological. The Kostanian Indians cooked leaves and flower baskets to treat dermatitis, as well as wounds, burns, boils and ulcers. The Kawaiisu Indians used this tea as a general pain reliever and orthopedic by applying this plant material to their aching muscles, while the Miwok Indians used fresh resinous kidneys to treat blood disorders. These Native American medicines were so effective and popular that many of them were used for quite some time by the early professional Western medical practitioners in California.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Grindelia spread out and Grindelia potent were introduced to Europe as medicinal plants.

Grindelia is a promising essential oil plant. The essential oil is found in the aerial parts of plants. In the leaves in the light, you can quite easily see essential oil glands, and aromatic substances are also present in the resin secreted by all parts of the plant. The composition of essential oil, for example, grindelia spread out, contains more than 100 components. Unfortunately, today the essential oil and oil of the absolute of grindelia in the world are exotic, very rare in the practice of aromatherapy, although due to its very pleasant aroma and valuable properties it has rich prospects.

Among the most studied representatives of this genus are the following:

  • powerful grindelia (Grindelia robusta);
  • grindelia spread out or grindelia protruding (Grindelia squarrosa);
  • field grindelia (Grindelia camporum);
  • grindelia low (Grindelia humilis).
Grindelia is powerful

Grindelia is powerful (Grindelia robusta) Is a perennial plant with a powerful woody stem of yellow, yellow-brown or gray-green color. Branched, almost glabrous or with white pubescence at the ends, stems with longitudinal grooves can reach 1 m in height. The stems end in apical inflorescences - baskets, which consist of external pseudo-lingual and internal - tubular yellow flowers, spherical or conical, 0.5-1 cm in size. Baskets are multi-flowered, up to 12 mm wide, surrounded by a tiled, multi-row wrapper. The leaves of the envelope are edged back and covered with a sticky, fresh white milk, later brown secretion. Long bloom, from June to September. The fruits ripen in August-September. The fruit is an oblong achene, 4-5 mm in size. The leaves, stem and flower basket have a shiny hue thanks to the resin that covers them. The plant has a faint balsamic smell.

Grindelia potent is a medicinal plant. Flowers of grindelia potent contain from 7 to 20% resinous substances, 1-2% essential oil, glucosides, saponins, flavonoids, alkaloid grindelin, tannins, vitamins C, E, A. Various preparations from grindelia potent are used for bronchitis and emphysema, laryngitis , whooping cough, asthma, with various skin diseases and allergic rashes, with tumors and fractures.

Grindelia spread out

Grindelia spread out, or protruding (Grindelia squarrosa) is an annual or biennial herb with a strong balsamic odor. Reaches 70 cm in height. The root is thin, fusiform. Stems are solitary, simple, erect or ascending, sometimes branched at the base, rounded in cross-section. Leaves are light green, lanceolate, finely serrated along the edge, medium - 5-10 cm long, the upper ones are shorter. The flowers are yellow, in baskets that form a corymbose or racemose inflorescence. Baskets are 2-3 cm in diameter, ligulate flowers are yellow. The fruit is a small dark brown achene, slightly flattened, up to 2 mm long. It blooms in June-September; under favorable weather conditions, flowering can last until October. The fruits begin to ripen in August.

Grindelia spread out contains aromatic resin in all organs of the plant, most of all in the wrapper and in the baskets, less in the leaves, stems, roots. The composition of this aromatic resin includes diterpenic acids of the labdan group - grindelic, about 9%. Its aromatic resin is a viscous, viscous mass that solidifies when the temperature drops, from light yellow to amber yellow, with a balsamic smell. In addition, grindelia contains a small amount (up to 1%) of essential oil.

Possesses medicinal properties. For medicinal purposes, the stems, leaves, flowers and roots of the plant are used. Currently, the spread grindelia is officially included in the pharmacopoeias of Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, India, France, America, Venezuela, Brazil. A number of drugs have been created on its basis. Spread grindelia preparations are used for pharyngitis, laryngitis, tracheitis, bronchitis, cough (especially in children and the elderly) with difficult sputum removal. They are also used for cystitis, stomach cancer, female diseases, syphilis, measles and stomach cramps in children. In a mixture with dope, grindelia is used for asthma. Grindelia spread out has been widely used in homeopathy for several centuries.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the herb and medicinal extract of grindelia were exported to Russia from the United States. Spread Grindelia was once included in the VII edition of the State Pharmacopoeia of the USSR, but was excluded from the VIII edition. At the moment, in traditional Russian medicine, this plant is used only in the composition of the drug Neo-Codion, which is prescribed for dry cough.

It is believed that grindelia was introduced to our country during the Great Patriotic War. Today in Russia it is found mainly in the Black Sea region as an invasive plant that grows like a weed in pastures, along roads.

Field Grindelia

Field Grindelia(Grindelia camporum) - a perennial plant up to 2 m high. This shrub strongly resembles a weed with tall, upright resinous branches. Green leaves, rather tough, with jagged edges, cover the stems. At the top of the stems there is a single inflorescence with a yellow flower head up to 3 cm wide, with large petals and characteristic green bracts forming a thick base. The wrap of the basket resembles a cup of thistle with green "claws" that curve downward. The basket is abundantly filled with a special white liquid, especially in the early stages of flowering. Flowering is long lasting, it can occur from spring to summer and even with a transition to autumn, depending on weather conditions. This plant is well pollinated by insects and has a smell reminiscent of balsamic vinegar.

Grindelia Field has a minimum growing radius outside of California. The usual habitat of this plant is dry shores with rocky soils, plains and other areas of low alkalinity.

Field Grindelia is very hardy and unpretentious. She loves full sun. Prefers light to medium sandy or loamy soils, but can adapt to much heavier soils if necessary. This plant is drought tolerant and able to survive heavy rainfall. But it does not tolerate cold weather, its frost resistance is only up to -5 Celsius. In some areas this plant can be grown as an annual due to local climatic conditions.

It propagates most easily by seeds, and germination rates are usually high. Plants can also propagate vegetatively by stem cuttings, but this method is very labor intensive and results in rather low rooting rates.

Field Grindelia is a medicinal herb that has a long history of use in folk and traditional medicine and is still used in modern herbalism. Among the medicinal qualities of this plant: anti-asthma, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, sedative, antispasmodic, as well as use as a skin care agent and for wound healing. Modern herbalists widely use this plant for the treatment of bronchial asthma and respiratory disorders due to the formation of a large amount of phlegm. It is believed to work by desensitizing the nerve endings of the bronchi and lowering the heart rate, which makes breathing easier. It is also used for cystitis.

Grindelia is also prized for its sticky substance, produced in the multicellular glands and ducts that cover flower baskets and plant leaves. The value of this gum has been well known to chemists for many years, who have long sought to turn this plant into a valuable cash crop, especially in arid regions. The resins produced by grindel are not true polysaccharide resins, but diterpenic acids, which play an important role in the production of materials, primarily for the US naval industry. These specialty chemicals are also used for a variety of industrial applications such as soil fertilization, rubber production, animal feed additives, paper sizing, synthetic fuels, paints and varnishes. Field Grindelia is an excellent candidate for the chemicals industry of the future. The acids of the labden type make up about 10% of the dry weight of this plant. This substance is hydrophobic, non-volatile, and almost identical to rosin, which is extracted from timber, but extraction from grindel is much less labor intensive.

Field Grindelia is also used in the production of green and yellow dyes from flower baskets and seed pods.

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