NIS - libdoc.who.int - World Health Organization

WHO monographs on medicinal plants commonly used in the Newly Independent States (NIS)
Description
Crataegus monogyna: a thorny shrub; leaves bright green with 3 or 5 acute
lobes, deeper and further apart than those of C. laevigata. Flowers,
grouped into branchy corymbs, have 5 triangular sepals, 5 white petals,
and an androecium of 15–20 stamens inserted on the edge of a monocarpellate,
brownish-green receptacle; floral peduncles and sepals pubescent,
stamen with black anthers and 1 style (1, 9).
Crataegus laevigata: a thorny shrub; twigs glabrescent, brown; leaves
bright green, obovate, with 3, 5 or 7 shallow, obtuse lobes. Flowers,
grouped into branchy corymbs, have 5 triangular sepals, 5 white petals,
and an androecium of 15–20 stamens inserted on the edge of a bi- or tricarpellate
receptacle; floral peduncles and sepals glabrous, stamens with
red anthers and 2–3 styles; fruits deep red, globose or ellipsoid (9, 11).
Plant material of interest: dried leaf with flower
General appearance
Crataegus monogyna: leaves bright green with 3 or 5 acute lobes, deeper
and further apart than those of C. laevigata, with secondary venation
curved outwards. Flowers, grouped into branchy corymbs, have 5 triangular
sepals, 5 white petals, and an androecium of 15–20 stamens inserted
on the edge of a monocarpellate, brownish-green receptacle; floral peduncles
and sepals pubescent, anthers black with 1 style; sepals lanceolate,
acuminate, falling over the ovary after flowering (1, 9).
Crataegus laevigata: leaves bright green with 3, 5 or 7 shallow, obtuse,
converging lobes, with secondary venation curved inward. Flowers,
grouped into branchy corymbs, have 5 triangular sepals, 5 white petals,
and an androecium of 15–20 stamens inserted on the edge of a bi- or tricarpellate
receptacle; floral peduncles and sepals glabrous, stamens with
red anthers and 2–3 styles.
Organoleptic properties
Odour: characteristic, faint; taste: slightly bitter-sweet, astringent (12–15).
Microscopic characteristics
Leaf dorsoventral; cells of upper epidermis polygonal, straight-walled
with striated cuticle, those of lower epidermis more sinuous; anomocytic
stomata on lower epidermis only; covering trichomes on both epidermises
but more numerous on the lower, which are long, tapering, unicellular or
very occasionally uniseriate with 2 cells, walls moderately thickened;
cluster crystals or groups of small prismatic crystals of calcium oxalate in
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