Balsam poplar
A tall, 20-35 m tall, deciduous dioecious tree of the willow family. It has a wide-ovate, small-branched crown and a cylindrical trunk covered with a smooth grayish-green bark; in the lower part of the trunk, especially in old trees, the bark is dark gray, cracked. Buds are bare, sticky. Alternate leaves, together with the petiole, glabrous, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 5-12 cm long and 2.5-7 cm wide, rounded at the base, gradually narrowed to the apex into a long tip, notched-serrated on the edge; above, dark green with a shine, below – whitish or rusty, with speckled glands, on long cylindrical thin petioles. Flowers unisexual, in drooping earrings; earrings – on a long stem, men’s up to 7 cm long, women’s – up to 15 cm long; receptacles are purple. The fruit is a box. Blooms in March – April, before the leaves appear.
Spread. Balsamic poplar is native to North America. Throughout the territory of Ukraine, it is cultivated as a decorative and phytoremedial plant.
Procurement and storage . For the production of medicines, poplar (Gemmae populi) leaf buds are used, which are harvested during the flowering period of the trees, breaking them off from branches cut with secateurs or saws during maintenance felling. The collected buds are dried in the shade in a draft or in a warm, ventilated room, spreading them in a thin (2-3 cm thick) layer on a cloth or paper and stirring from time to time. 20% of dry buds are obtained. The finished raw materials are stored in dry, well-ventilated rooms.
The plant is unofficial .
Chemical composition. Balsamic poplar buds contain phenol glucosides salicin and populin; flavonoids (8.05%) apigenin, galangin and genquanin, galangin 3-methyl ester, isalpinin, quercetin, kaempferol, kaempferol 3-methyl ester, pinostrobin, pinocembrin, rhamnocitrin, rhamnetin, isorhamnetin, rhamnasin, chrysin and tectochrysin; organic acids: benzoic, cinnamic, gallic, caffeic, ferulic and malic; up to 0.7% of essential oil, which includes humulene, α-caryophyllene, cineole and unidentified sesquiterpenoids; vitamin C, fatty oil and other compounds.
Pharmacological properties and use. Poplar preparations have diuretic, antiseptic and diaphoretic properties. They are most often used for kidney diseases, cystitis, urinary incontinence, painful urination, especially during pregnancy and after operations, and for prostate hypertrophy. In addition, poplar products are used for neuroses, various types of neuralgia, arthritic diseases, hemorrhoids, intestinal atony, diarrhea, colds, flu, sexual excitement (spermatorrhea) and as a means to regulate menstruation. As an antiseptic and helps to thin out sputum, poplar is used to treat acute inflammatory processes of the respiratory tract and chronic bronchitis with purulent sputum. It is important to emphasize that even with long-term use, poplar products do not show any side effects on the body. When applied externally, poplar products have an anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, hemostatic and mild anesthetic effect. With this in mind, products from poplar buds (ointment, oil infusion, less often – tincture) are used for the treatment of wounds, ulcers, burns, cuts, clogged areas and hemorrhoids, as a remedy for hair loss, for itchy skin and dermatitis, for rubbing with gout and rheumatism. Tincture, in addition, is considered a good remedy for the treatment of trichomonad colpitis.
Medicinal forms and applications .
Internally – 2 teaspoons of crushed raw materials are infused for 15 minutes in 1-2 glasses of boiling water, filtered and the resulting infusion is drunk in 3-4 doses per day;
tincture of buds (1-2 teaspoons of crushed raw material per 100 ml of vodka, infuse for 7 days) 20 drops 3 times a day.
Externally – sitting baths with infusion (3 tablespoons of crushed buds are boiled for 5 minutes in 4 glasses of water, infused for 4 hours, strained and added to the bath) for hemorrhoids: ointment (1 part of bud powder to 4 parts of the ointment base);
oil infusion (1 part of crushed raw material to 5 parts of oil, boil for 30 minutes, insist for 15 days, strain) or tincture (prepared as in the previous recipe) for lubricating or rubbing the affected areas of the body;
a combined tincture of equal parts of buds of balsamic poplar and warty birch (prepared in vodka in a ratio of 1:10) for lubricating areas of the skin affected by mycosis.