Thermopsis lanceolate.

Thermopsis lanceolate

A perennial herbaceous plant of the legume family, up to 40 cm high. The main root has a well-developed system of adventitious roots and rhizomes. The stems are numerous, erect, branched, furrowed, pubescent with reddish protruding hairs.

The leaves are trifoliate, alternate, petiolate, with stipules, glabrous above, green, pubescent below. Blooms in June - July. The flowers are yellow, collected in a racemose inflorescence in the axils of the apical leaves. The fruit is a bean. Ripens in August.

Thermopsis lanceolate is common in Western and Eastern Siberia, the Urals and Northern Kazakhstan.

It grows in the steppe and forest-steppe zones on rocky and gravelly slopes, in river valleys, in fallow lands and saline meadows as a malicious weed. Forms large thickets.

The medicinal raw materials are the aerial parts and seeds.

The grass is harvested during the budding period, cutting at a height of 3-5 cm from the soil surface. Dry in the sun, under a canopy or in a dryer at a temperature of 40-45°C.

The beans are harvested when fully ripe, dried well in the sun, threshed and the seeds winnowed. Store in a tightly closed wooden or glass container for 2 years.

The aerial part of the plant contains alkaloids (thermopsin, methylcytisine, pachycarpine, etc.), saponins, tannins, resins, mucus, vitamin C and traces of essential oil. A sum of alkaloids, mainly cytisine, were found in the seeds.

Thermopsis preparations have an expectorant and anthelmintic effect.

They are prescribed in the form of infusion, powder, tablets and dry extract for diseases of the lungs and upper respiratory tract, when it is necessary to thin the sputum and enhance the secretion of the bronchial glands. In large doses they have an emetic effect.

To prepare the infusion, pour 0.6 g of herb into 1 glass of hot water, boil in a closed enamel container in a water bath for 15 minutes, cool for 45 minutes, filter through two or three layers of gauze, squeeze and bring the volume with boiled water to the original volume.

Take 1 tablespoon 3-4 times a day with meals. The industry produces preparations with thermopsis.

Dry thermopsis extract - a mixture of dry thermopsis extract and milk sugar in tablets of 0.05 g. Take 1 tablet 2-3 times a day with meals.

Cough tablets contain thermopsis herb and sodium bicarbonate. Take 1 tablet 3 times a day with meals.