Description

Eleutherococcus

Eleutherococcus senticosus Rupret Maxim
Synonyms – wild onion, Siberian ginseng, devil’s bush, etc.

It is a shrub up to 2 (and sometimes 4-5 m) meters high with light brown branches (shoots) densely covered with thin twigs, with thorns below. The leaves have 5 leaflets, the middle one being larger than the others. The flowers are umbellate on long stalks, they are dioecious, the corolla is yellow or pale purple. The fruits are spherical, black berries with five seeds. It blooms in the period July-August, and the fruits ripen in September.

The leaves and roots are medicinal. The leaves are collected during flowering, and the roots in autumn or early spring. The roots contain glycosides-derivatives of steroids, coumarins and flavonoids, alkaloids and essential oils. Eleutherococcus preparations stimulate physical and mental performance, increase the body’s resistance to various harmful factors and diseases, normalize blood pressure, reduce blood sugar, improve the general condition. Increase the body’s resistance to colds and other diseases, improve sleep, increase appetite, normalize processes in the nervous system, reduce toxicity (anti-blastoma) of some substances. Indications for use are: neurasthenia, mental conditions, exhausted nervous system accompanied by reduced performance, irritability, insomnia and neuroses, spasms, arrhythmia, low blood pressure – functional type, initial forms of atherosclerosis, hypertensive disease, mild form of diabetes, acute and chronic radiation sickness (in combination with other agents).