NIS - libdoc.who.int - World Health Organization

WHO monographs on medicinal plants commonly used in the Newly Independent States (NIS)
with the exception of deserts, paramos and the northern regions (4, 5, 7, 8,
17–21).
Description
A perennial plant with sterile and fertile stems. Rhizomes: horizontal, up
to 3 mm in diameter, layered, extending to a depth of about 1 m, brownish-black,
branched, creeping, with blackish tubers up to 7 mm in diameter.
Roots: at the bases of lateral branch buds, on both rhizomes and
erect shoots. Fertile stems: ephemeral, appear early in the spring, 15–
20 cm high, up to 5 mm in diameter, unbranched, succulent, reddish or
yellowish, jointed, with 6–12 blackish-brown lanceolate teeth at the
joints. Cones: apical, ovate-cylindrical, blunt-tipped, 1–3.5 cm long. The
strobile is situated under peltate polygons, which are pileus-like bodies,
arranged in whorls; 4–7 spiral filaments surround the green globular
spores, which roll up closely around them when moist, and uncoil when
dry. The fertile stem never turns green. The green, sterile shoots develop
later from the rhizome, by which time the fertile shoots have usually
wilted. Sterile stems: 5–15(80) cm high, erect, 6–18(20) grooved, hollow,
jointed, up to 20 whorls of slender branches. Leaves scale-like, deciduous,
inconspicuous, in whorls at the nodes, are connected at their bases
(4, 5, 18, 19, 22–27).
Plant material of interest: dried sterile aerial parts
General appearance
Whole sterile stems, 20–80 cm long (up to 30 cm long according to the
USSR pharmacopoeia 1990 (2)), or fragments of 0.5–2 cm in length, and
3–5 mm in diameter, with 6–18(20) deep longitudinal grooves, light green
to greenish-grey, rough to the touch, brittle and crunchy when crushed,
hollow and jointed at the nodes, which occur at intervals of about 1.5–
4.5 cm. Vaginas covering the stem nodes are cylindrical, 4–8 mm long,
with teeth; the teeth are triangular-lanceolate, dark brown, with whitescaled
margins, half as long as vagina, concrescent in groups of 2 or 3.
Fracture short, exposing a large central cavity and the vascular canals of
the cortex in the stems. Numerous solid branches arranged in whorls,
pointing upwards, unbranched, 5–20 cm long, 1–2 mm in diameter, with
4–5 deep grooves. Leaf vaginas on the branches are cylindrical, green and
have 4–5 teeth, which represent the extremely reduced leaves; the number
of teeth corresponds to the number of grooves on the branches; the teeth
are pale green or brownish, oblong-lanceolate, with acuminate apices;
half or one third as long as vagina; connected between each other (alter-
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