Botanical characteristics. Shrub or small tree. The bark of young shoots of light-gray, sometimes yellow-brown, the old – a darker, fissured, flaky. Depending on the type of plant leaf shape can vary on the same plant: round, obovate, elliptic, blade with a tapered or neglubokoserdtsevid-nym base. Inflorescences in the form of loose umbellate panicles. White flowers with bracts, caducous after flowering. Boundary barren, flat, median – bell bisexual. Fruits – a drupe, globose, juicy, red. Stone is slightly flattened. Blooms in June – July, fruiting in August – September.

Found several species introduced into the culture. All types are similar in chemical composition and have similar medicinal properties, used in medicine the same way.

Distribution. Grows in the undergrowth on the edges, rather moist soil in river valleys, along rivers and lakes, mostly in bleached areas.

Used parts of the plant. Medicinal raw materials are the fruits, leaves, flowers, bark, roots are rarely collected in the usual way during the whole growing season.

Chemical composition. The bark contains tannins, saponins triterpene groups, glycoside viburnin, phenolcarbonate and organic acids, mainly formic, acetic, valeric, capric, caprylic, butyric, linoleic, tserotinovaya, palmitic acid, phytosterol and fitosterolin, fobafeny, miritsilovy alcohol and other chemical compounds.

The fruits contain sugar, vitamins C, P, K, carotene, essential oils, pectin tannins, organic acids (citric, malic, coffee, oxalic acid, chlorogenic acid, ursolic, izohlorogenovaya, neochlorogenic), Army, sitosterol.

In the flowers contain flavonoids in the seeds – a fatty oil.

Application. The bark is included in the pharmacopoeia of many countries. In folk medicine, decoctions of bark, flowers and fresh fruits are used for insomnia, respiratory infections, as a sedative, astringent, diuretic, laxative, and scrofula in children, as a choleretic, kardiostimuliruyuschee, anti-hypertensive.

In medical practice, drugs viburnum used to enhance the tone of the uterus, as an antiseptic, hemostatic, analgesic.

In the experiment, drugs are often snowball adaptogenic effect, have a sedative, antiestrogenic effect, often a diuretic effect. They reduce the amount of cholesterol in the blood, regulate blood pressure, normalize lipid metabolism, and renal blood circulation, stimulate blood clotting, have a cardiotonic action. Preparations of the cortex have a marked hypotensive and sedative effect.

Infusions and decoctions of flowers are used for painful menstruation, threatened miscarriage, as an antiseptic and expectorant. Fruits of Viburnum increase contraction of the heart, increase diuresis, are vitamins, diaphoretic, laxative. They are taken with gastritis, decreased secretion and to prevent ulcers and stomach cancer, bronchitis, liver disease, pneumonia, cough, hoarseness, colds, jaundice.

Fresh juice of leaves and flowers is bracing tool after serious illnesses, is used as an anti-inflammatory, with sore throat and laryngitis (hoarse voice). They lubricate the affected skin with various skin diseases, pile, also juice whiten darkened and coarsened by the sun and wind on your face, from his pale freckles and dark spots – chloasma.

Juice is taken by 20-30 grams 3 times a day.

Preparation

    * To prepare the infusion takes 20 grams of flowers or leaves, pour 200 ml of boiled water, water bath for 15 minutes, cool 30-45 minutes, filtered. Take 1 / 3 cup 3 times a day
    * For the broth 15 g of bark or fruit is poured 180 ml of boiled water, in a boiling water bath for 30 min, cooled for 10 minutes, filtered, adjusted to the desired volume. Take a decoction of the cortex in 2 tbsp. spoon 3 times a day. Decoction of fruit is taken in 50 ml 3-4 times daily after meals.
    * At home, you can prepare an extract of the bark Viburnum. To do this, take a powder of the bark (1 part) and 10 parts 50% alcohol, insist 10 days in a warm place, filter. Should take 30-40 drops to receive 3-4 times a day.
    * Juice viburnum prepared in the fall. The berries are washed, passed through a juicer. Juice mixed with sugar (preferably in a blender), the rate of 1 kg (juice, not fruit!) 2 kg of sugar. The resultant mixture for 5-10 days has a bitter taste, and then the bitterness disappears and the juice is tasty. With him drink tea, prepared fruit drinks and jelly, it is added to the infusion of herbs. If freshly prepared juice snowball in the refrigerator, the bitterness will disappear after 1-2 days.

Homeopathy. Homeopathic Viburnum 3, 3, 6, prepared from fresh bark Viburnum and is used primarily for the treatment of gynecological diseases: for painful menstruation, threatened abortion, postpartum pain, for the treatment of dismenorrei.