Scumpia (plant) - Useful Properties And Use Of Scumpia, Growing Scumpia. Skumpia Leather, Ordinary

2024 Author: Josephine Shorter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:43

Scumpia

Useful properties and use of scumpia

Botanical characteristics of the scumpia

Scumpia is a branchy shrub or tree with a height of two to five meters. Its bark is grayish-brown, the wood is yellowish. Young shoots on the fracture secrete milky juice. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, oval in shape, with sharply protruding veins. Flowers are bisexual or staminate, numerous, collected in rare large panicles. Fruits are small dry drupes.

Scumpia blooms in May-July, bears fruit in July-September. The plant is found in the south of the European part of Russia, in the southern regions of Ukraine, in the Caucasus, in the Mediterranean, in Western Asia and China. Scumpia grows mainly on the southern slopes, in sparse forests, among bushes, in the mountains up to 1500 m above sea level. Skumpia is widely cultivated in field-protective plantations.

Useful properties of scumpia

Since ancient times, people have known about the beneficial properties of scumpia and have used it for various purposes. The bark of the plant was harvested for the production of yellow paint, shoots for tanning leather, and all kinds of crafts and tools were made from hard wood.

In addition, all parts of the plant - roots, leaves and branches - have been and are being used by traditional medicine for medicinal purposes. They contain many biologically active substances such as tannins, flavonoids (fustin, myricitrin, etc.), essential oil, which includes terpineol, pinene, linalool, myrcene. The leaves of scumpia contain a lot of carotene (32 mg / 100 g), organic acids, tocopherols (5.59 mg / 100 g), and the flavonoid fisetin is in the stems.

Decoctions and infusions of scumpia are most often used externally as an effective drug with anti-inflammatory and astringent properties, which is good for various inflammations and skin diseases.

Application of the scump

When used externally, decoctions and infusions of scumpia, the bioactive substances present in them cause partial coagulation of mucus or exudate proteins when in contact with the mucous or wound surface. As a result, a film is formed that reliably protects body tissues from external influences. At the same time, pain sensitivity decreases, inflammatory processes decrease, blood vessels narrow.

Preparations based on scumpia are also effective for sweating and swelling of the legs as a result of frostbite, such remedies are used for hemorrhoids and leucorrhoea in women, for boils and festering wounds, for toothaches and inflammation of the gums. This unique plant stops bleeding in periodontitis and ulcerative gingivostomatitis. It is one of the important components in the composition of medicinal preparations used to treat lung diseases.

Infusion of herbs for pneumonia: mix 2 tablespoons of scumpia, hyssop, eucalyptus, chamomile and creeping tenacious. Add 1 tablespoon of St. John's wort and Siberian root. After mixing the herbs, take 6 tablespoons of the collection and steam them with two liters of boiling water. Insist the remedy for at least 1 hour. Take the infusion 8-9 times a day, half a glass.

Scumpia decoction for gingivitis: 5 g of leaves should be poured with 150 ml of boiling water, simmer in a water bath for no more than 10 minutes, then cool, strain and rinse the mouth with broth three times a day.

Scumpia leaves

The foliage of the scumpia is peculiar. Rounded bluish-green leaves, dull above and slightly pubescent below, are located on long petioles and have distinct veins. With the onset of autumn, first of all, the color along the veins changes, acquiring a fiery red hue, then all the foliage is colored red, crimson or red. If you rub a leaf of a plant in your hands, you can smell the carrot.

Scumpia leaves are a medicinal raw material. They contain up to 20% gallotannin, free gallic acid, essential oil, linalool, camphene, flavonoids. Harvesting of raw materials is carried out during flowering and fruiting, because it is during this period that the plants contain the greatest amount of tannins. Foliage is dried outdoors under a canopy. There should be no blackened or reddened leaves in the finished product (this indicates late collection).

Growing scumpia

Although the scumpia is unpretentious, it loves dry, well-heated soil and sunny places. It propagates by seeds, cuttings and layering. For propagation by layering, it is enough to slightly cut the lower branch and press it to the ground. Once the branch has taken root, it can be separated from the parent plant.

When scumpia is propagated by cuttings in June-July, green cuttings are harvested. Before disembarking, they are soaked for 12 hours in a solution of heteroauxin, after which they are planted in a greenhouse. Cuttings are hard to root, so at this stage they will need frequent watering. In order for the soil to retain moisture, mulching is necessary.

For propagation by seeds, the fruits of the plant are harvested at the end of summer, extracting seeds from them. When sowing seeds in the fall, they are not stratified; during spring sowing, they go through the stage of stratification. Skumpia is an unpretentious plant, and you do not need to create special care conditions for it.

Skumpia leather

This large deciduous shrub or tree belongs to the sumac family and reaches a height of 5 meters. The crown of the tanning skumpia is dense, spherical or umbellate, the trunks are branched, with a grayish-brown bark. Leaves are dark green, alternate, elliptical or ovate, with sharply protruding veins. Closer to autumn, the leaves change their color, becoming first yellow, then reddish and then crimson. The flowers are small, gathered in spreading panicle inflorescences. Fruits are small drupes with drying pulp.

Scumpia leaves are used as raw materials for obtaining pure medical tannin, which has antiseptic, astringent and anti-inflammatory properties. Tannin is a part of many medicines, in particular, it is one of the main components of Neoanuzole rectal suppositories, as well as Novikov's liquid used to treat wounds, cuts and scratches. Medical tannin is good for poisoning with salts of heavy metals, alkaloids, as well as for certain diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.

Scumpia ordinary

Common scumpia is a shrub or low tree with a dense spherical crown and yellowish wood. It reaches a height of 2-3 meters. Young shoots, when cut, secrete milky juice. The leaves are alternate, ovoid, bluish-green. Flowers - small, greenish-white, collected in the form of spreading panicles. The plant blooms in June-July, the fruits ripen from August to September. Sumpia grows up to 80-100 years old.

As a medicinal raw material, leaves are harvested, which are collected during the flowering and fruiting period of the plant. Tannin and gallic acid are obtained from scumpia leaves, which are used as raw materials for the production of drugs such as securinin, tanigan, pyragolol, tanoform. There are many tannins in the shoots of the plant, due to which they were previously used for tanning leather. In addition, the leaves and branches of the common scumpia contain essential oil and the dye myricitrin.

Contraindications to the use of scumpia

Contraindications to the use of this plant have not been particularly studied. We can only say with confidence that scumpia preparations should not be taken by people with liver disease. In all other cases, consultations with the attending physician are desirable. Hypersensitivity and individual intolerance cannot be ruled out either.

The author of the article: Sokolova Nina Vladimirovna | Phytotherapist

Education: Diploma in "General Medicine" and "Therapy" received at the Pirogov University (2005 and 2006). Advanced training at the Department of Phytotherapy at the Peoples' Friendship University of Moscow (2008).