Category pharmacognosy

Cherries: Terminology and Botany
pharmacognosy

Cherries: Terminology and Botany

In Italy, the cherry is the fruit of a plant belonging to the genus Prunus and Species avium but, above all in the Anglo-Saxon language, the same noun ( cherry ) is used to indicate also other fruits of the trees belonging to the genus Prunus . Commercial cherries are obtained mainly from the production of sweet cultivars, such as Specie avium

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pharmacognosy

Ginseng

Ginseng, Panax Ginseng , is a drug that is characterized by the rich presence of saponins, in particular of steroidic and triterpene saponins, which give it the well-known adaptogen-tonic property. Among all, ginseng is in fact that drug that adequately dresses the definition of "adaptogen", that is that it acts in a non-specific way
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pharmacognosy

Alkaloid drugs

The alkaloids are those compounds characterized by having a direct biogenetic pathway, derived from amino acids, and an indirect pathway linked to amination. The alkaloids are molecules that have a different characterization: the amination of a terpene, for example, could lead to a terpene alkaloid, also called protoalcaloid or pseudo-alkaloid, if the nitrogen that is bound to this terpenic compound has the chemical characteristics of a nitrogen with a free electronic doublet, which therefore allows the alkaline reactivity
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pharmacognosy

Eleutherococcus

Eleutherococcus is also a drug derived from a plant belonging to the Araliacee family, Eleutherococcus senticosus , very similar to ginseng. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, also called Siberian ginseng, because it is grown at high latitudes. Eleutherococcus is a drug characterized by the rhizome and roots, and presents an extremely diversified phytocomplex; for this reason, it is not possible to identify a particular category of compounds to which the adaptogenic and tonic properties are ascribed, contrary to what we have done with Ginkgo or ginseng
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pharmacognosy

Opium poppy

OPPIO POPPY ( Papaver somniferum ) belongs to the Papaver family; is an annual herbaceous plant cultivated in its varieties, album (the most valuable), nigrum and setigerum , to obtain opium bread. Opium bread is a semi-solid mass of brownish-black color and with a very aromatic smell; it is nothing more than the latex collected after being made to exude from the immature capsule and then left to dry and oxidize in the air; when stirred continuously it loses water, it takes on a color from white - greyish to brown - blackish and a more solid consistency
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pharmacognosy

Adaptogenic drugs

Adaptogenic drugs increase the resistance, capacity and defenses of the organism in a non-specific way, stimulating it to react positively to stressful situations; situations that can be variously interpretable, such as stressful physical or emotional events, but which, in any case, affect our body's ability to react, as a whole and as a part (functionality of specific organs)
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pharmacognosy

Pretty Woman

BELLADONNA , Atropa belladonna , Solanaceae family, is a herbaceous plant whose dried leaves are used as a drug; the leaves of the belladonna have interesting cytological and histological characteristics (stomatal index and typology of stomata, palisade index, presence of hairs and granules of calcium oxalate which form small aggregates inside the leaf cells, similar to microcrystalline sand) to be able to easily to identify in the species Atropa belladonna
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pharmacognosy

Starch

AMID is an important product in the herbalist, but also dietary and cosmetic field, because it can give both derivatives, such as monosaccharides (glucose), disaccharides and oligosaccharides, but it can also be used directly for its homogeneous polysaccharide characteristics. Each starchy drug contains a different starch, not only from the microscopic point of view (with granules of different shapes, simple or compound), but also from the chemical-physical one (thanks to the different amylose / amylopectin ratio)
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pharmacognosy

Carbohydrate drugs

Carbohydrates are divided into monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides; among monosaccharides it is important to remember the dextrans and cyclodextrins of biotechnological origin, the result of the biotransformation of a substrate by bacteria; dextrans are important in the formulation of preparations suitable for overcoming hemorrhagic shocks, this because they have plasma-like consistency and physiology; dextrans are also useful in the formulation of eye drops
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pharmacognosy

Ergot

In the set of adaptogenic drugs we can also insert SEGAL CORNUTA , with expression also linked to homeopathy. The ergot is a drug characterized by a biological form of resistance of a fungus, known as Clavicex purpurea . This fungus infests the cultivation of grasses, in particular rye, but not only; it attacks the inflorescences, in particular the female genital apparatus of the grasses and, when the spores arrive on the inflorescence, they develop the vegetative part, making the hyphae grow; these hyphae completely envelop the single flower, produce a sugary substance called "honeydew&qu
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pharmacognosy

Cellulose

CELLULOSE is a homogeneous polysaccharide, which differs from starch in that it is formed by b-glucose, where the single molecules, with a B-1, 4 bond, are rotated with respect to each other by 180 °; the fact that each molecule is rotated 180 ° with respect to the one with which it is bound, causes the cellulose molecule to assume a linear structure; this rotation does not occur in the case of the a-1.4
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