Tannins, or tannides, are found in almost all plants in varying quantities and are nitrogen-free aromatic compounds derived from polyatomic phenols. Tannins are accumulated in various plant organs, mainly in the bark and wood of trees and shrubs, as well as in the underground parts of herbaceous perennials; the green parts of most plants are poorer in tannins. Tannins and plants containing them are used externally as an astringent and bactericidal agent for inflammations of the mouth and pharynx, alveolar pyorrhea, burns and bleeding, and internally as an anti-inflammatory and anti-diarrheal agent. Pigments are coloring organic substances of plants, complex organic compounds; many are chemically poorly understood. Pigments are found mainly in the roots, flowers, leaves of plants, as well as in the peels of fruits. Plants containing coloring organic substances have long been used in folk medicine for various diseases, especially as disinfectants and wound-healing agents.

Amino acids are organic compounds that are the basic element in all protein substances of animal and plant organisms. Amino acids are also part of antibiotics, vitamins and other compounds important for the body. Currently, approximately 20 different amino acids have been isolated. Organic resins are substances of plant origin, of complex chemical composition, close to essential oils, usually insoluble in water, but soluble in organic solvents (alcohol, ether, gasoline, etc.). The chemical composition of resins is not yet sufficiently studied. Organic resins do not go rancid, do not rot, do not spoil, are easily inflammable. Fatty oils are organic compounds that are esters of glycerol and higher fatty acids. Fats are composed of fatty acids and unsaturated acids. Fatty oils often have fatty acids in their composition. These are palmitic, stearic, myristic, lauric and other acids.

Melon Schleicher - used only in folk medicine for gastritis with low acidity, peptic ulcer, spastic colitis, chronic constipation, hemorrhoids, flatulence, intestinal atony, liver and gallbladder disease, gallstone disease, hepatic colic, jaundice, bronchitis, bronchiectasis, pulmonary tuberculosis, etc. In inflammation of the gums and stomatitis used as a gargle of 30-50 drops of juice in 1/2 cup of warm water. Fresh juice lubricate the skin and make lotions, local baths of decoction of dried herb melon or concentrated infusion, or ointment - with skin rashes, acne, scrofula, scabies, scabies, eczema, allergies, wounds, sweating and other diseases.

The section provides basic facts about the benefits of natural herbal ingredients - medicinal plants. All medicinal plants have a botanical description (excluding commonly known ones), flowering and fruit ripening time, distribution and growing places, parts of the plant used, time when medicinal plants are collected, smell and taste of plant raw materials, list of chemicals found in the plant.In covering the experience of folk medicine, the author used domestic literature available to the author.

Aire is a perennial herbaceous, marsh or coastal plant of the aroid family, 60-70 cm tall. The rhizome is thick, white inside, spongy, branching, creeping, lined with numerous roots from below. It is distributed almost all over the European part of the USSR, in the Caucasus, Siberia, and Central Asia. It grows along the banks of rivers, streams, water basins with muddy soil and in swampy areas. Sometimes forms thickets.Used rhizomes (iris root), dug in the fall or early winter, when the water level drops. The smell is fragrant, the taste is spicy and bitter.The medicinal properties of aira are due to the fact that it contains a large percentage of useful substances. The use of aira in medicine is quite wide. Acorin increases excitability to gustatory irritation and increases the reflex separation of gastric juice.

Aloe tree (stoloniferous) is an evergreen succulent plant of the lily family, with fleshy and sessile leaves 30-40 cm long, covering the stem with a broad base. The edges of the leaves are spiky, the lower side convex, the upper side flat, with a yellowish sap on the cut. It blooms after 5-6 years, and even later in room conditions. The flowers are orange-yellow, gathered in a rather dense brush at the end of the peduncle. The juice is used, from which sabur is obtained (evaporated, condensed and hardened juice of aloe leaves), giving when rubbed yellow-green powder with a peculiar odor and bitter taste.Useful properties of aloe are often used to treat various ailments. Aloe juice contains anthracene derivatives in the form of glycosides and free aglycones (aloe - emadin), resinous substances, traces of essential oil. Juice from fresh leaves is rich in enzymes, vitamins and has a bactericidal effect.

Althea medicinalis (from Greek "alcea" - healing) is a perennial herbaceous plant of the mallow family. The stem is one or several, erect, grayish-green, felted and fibrous, woody below, up to 1.5 m tall. Leaves are three to five-lobed, alternate, long-petiolate. Flowers are pale pink, five-petaled, located in the axils of the upper leaves at the top of the stems, forming spike-like inflorescences. The rhizome is thick, short, multi-headed, with a strong stem, in the upper part of a single-trunked root, reaching 50 cm in length; the roots are fleshy, whitish. Flowering medicinal marshmallow from June to August. Honey bee. The medicinal properties of althea help to cure ailments due to active beneficial elements.The medicinal properties of althea have a favorable effect on the human body. The flowers contain essential oil, which contains acids with an odor reminiscent of valerian root. The leaves contain mucilage, carotene, ascorbic acid, traces of essential oil.

Anise is an annual herbaceous plant of the umbrella family with a height of 30-60 cm. The stem is straight, rounded, branching from above. The lower leaves are entire, notched-toothed or lobed; the middle leaves are long-petiolate, triple, with cuneate, often two-lobed lateral segments and a three-lobed terminal segment; the upper leaves are sessile and dissected into narrow lobes. Flowers are small, white, gathered in compound umbrellas.Watermelon is a well-known herbaceous annual plant native to South Africa. It blooms from May to August. The fruit is berries (the largest). Watermelon is cultivated in the southern and middle regions of the European part of the USSR, in the Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In the Caucasus are treated with decoction of roots for colds and hemorrhoids (drink and make baths), leaves are chewed, and decoction of roots is rinsed in the mouth for gum disease. L. O. Pavlenko recommends for nervous tension daily use tea of dried blackberry leaves. А. 3. Rykovtsev (Kiev) reported on his use of herbal tea instead of regular tea, consisting of blackberry leaves, black currants, strawberries, mint, molasses, herbs oregano, thyme and linden flowers - equal parts of each; 4-5 tablespoons of the mixture steamed in 1 liter of boiling water, insist in warmth for 1 hour, take 1 cup 3 times a day as a pleasant tonic drink.

Used quite widely among the people, white-hoofed hybrid has recently attracted more and more interest in scientific medicine. The study of rhizomes showed that they contain saponins (about 8%), tannins (about 5%), essential oil, flavonoids, resins, alkaloids. Sesquiterpene hydrocarbons with a strong antispasmodic effect have been isolated from the rhizomes of white hoofed hybrid. They also contain inulin, but no starch. The presence of manganese (especially in the leaves) in the plant of whitebush hybrid manganese was also found. In experiments, it was shown that extracts from rhizomes of whitebuckthorn hybrid have hypotensive, antispasmodic and anticoagulant effects. So perhaps the glory of whitebush hybrid is yet to come. Currently, the leaves of white-hoofberry hybrid are included in various teas used to treat gastritis and gastric ulcers, as well as some malignant tumors.

Black elderberry has been known as a medicinal plant for a very long time. But in recent years, its popularity is gradually falling, although it is still used. Infusion of elderberry flowers - diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory (for colds, bronchitis) and diuretic. The main effect of elderberry cheronoy berries - a mild laxative and diaphoretic. Black elderberry bark is used as a diuretic. Infusion of flowers often gargle throat, use it to treat burns and wounds. Decoctions of all parts of black elderberry treat rheumatism, joint inflammation, gout, neuralgia, myositis. Sometimes for treatment recommended young leaves of black elderberry, they are scalded with milk and applied to places of burns and wounds. Elderberry preparations in the form of inhalation treat colds.

The range of uses of common verbeyne in folk medicine is quite wide. The stem, leaves and flowers are medicinal raw materials. Studies of the chemical composition of common verbein revealed in it flavonoids, phenolcarboxylic acids, anthocyanin, carbohydrates, vitamin C, and in rhizomes - saponins. Water and wine tinctures verbeinik ordinary recommended for gastrointestinal disorders, constipation, dysentery, hemoptysis and rheumatism. Fresh juice of the plant verbeinikoy used for scurvy and as an external remedy (for bruises, tumors, conjunctivitis and as a wound-healing). There are also known other uses of common verbeinik: for jaundice, liver diseases, convulsions. Verbeyne is a part of collections used for cystitis.

Basil mint (basil camphor basil) is a perennial semi-shrub from the family of sponges with a height of 50-80 cm. The stem is erect and branched. Leaves are suprotic, short-petiolate. Inflorescence is a simple brush 7-20 cm long, the corolla is white, less often pink. The whole plant is pubescent and has a strong specific odor. Basil mint blooms from July to late fall. Good nectariferous.Basil mint has the ability to excite the central nervous system, especially the center of the medulla oblongata, and enhance the activity of the heart, low toxicity, in large doses causes convulsions clonic character. Treatment with basil locally has an irritating and antiseptic effect.

Common barberry is a perennial branching shrub of the barberry family, up to 2-3 m tall. Branches are equipped with three-divided prickles, young yellowish, gray in the second year. Leaves are alternate, obovate, finely spiny-toothed along the edges with a network of veins on the lower surface, narrowed into a petiole. Flowers are light yellow in simple multicolored drooping clusters. The fruit is an oblong, cylindrical, red sour berry with 2-3 seeds. Common barberry blooms in May-July. Fruits ripen in September - October. Treatment with barberry is carried out comprehensively and in the collection from several species of plants. Tincture of leaves of common barberry, as well as Amur barberry, has styptic, increasing blood clotting and choleretic effect. The most active properties of barberry are alkaloids berberine, which has antibacterial activity.

White birch is a tree up to 20 m tall from the birch family, with white, smooth, parchment-like bark with characteristic dark lines. The white birch grows wild and is cultivated as an ornamental and landscaping plant. In total, there are up to 120 species of birch, in the USSR grows about 65 species, differing from each other in some features, in medicine they are used equally. Treatment with birch has been practiced for many centuries. Infusion and decoction of the buds have diuretic, antiseptic, choleretic properties. Some clinicians have observed a significant increase in urine output under the influence of this decoction and a sharp reduction in edema, even in cases where other cardiac and diuretic remedies did not help.

St. John's wort is a perennial. The stems are erect, branched at the top, 30 to 100 cm high and more. Flowers are golden-yellow, numerous, in inflorescences at the top of stems from branches. It blooms in June through August. When looking at the leaf in the light, it is mottled with numerous translucent dots. It grows everywhere on hills, glades and edges, but especially in places where cattle do not enter (in dry and light forests, along roadsides, between bushes and in forest belts). It grows well in culture with winter sowing.

Immortelle sandy (cumin) is a perennial herbaceous plant, 15-40 cm tall, with whitish hairy stem and leaves, from the family of compound flowers. Flower baskets of lemon-yellow or orange color are gathered in a dense shield-shaped inflorescence. Immortelle sandy blooms in June and August. The properties of immortelle are known to many phytotherapists and are widely used in folk and traditional medicine. In the inflorescences found flavonoids in the form of glycosides and free aglycones, vitamin C, carotene, essential oil, organic acids, sterols, coloring substances of phenolic character, bitter and tannins, resins, fatty oils.

Golden rose is a perennial of the aster family with a stem branched at the top, 40-90 cm high (Table X). Leaves are root long-petiolate, stem leaves lanceolate, serrate along the edge. Flowers are yellow in a long panicle. Blooms in July - September. Occurs in the northern parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It grows in pine forests, among shrubs, on forest edges and glades, on hillsides.

Blood-red hawthorn (the name crataegus means hardness, rigidity), prickly hawthorn (oxyacantha from Greek oxys sharp, prickly, akantha - thorn). Blood-red hawthorn is a shrub or tree up to 4 m high with purplish-brown shiny shoots, few straight thick prickles up to 4 cm long, from the family Rosaceae. Blood-red hawthorn is distributed in the forest-steppe zone, in the European part of the USSR, in Western Siberia, in Eastern Kazakhstan. It grows in sparse forests, along forest edges and river banks, in wall gullies. Properties of hawthorn are used in traditional and folk medicine. There are indications that the chemical composition of hawthorn prickly and blood-red are equivalent. The use of hawthorn is widespread in pharmacology. Hawthorn preparations (infusion of fruits and flowers, liquid extract from fruits, tincture of flowers is part of cardiovalen) reduce the excitability of the central nervous system, have a tonic effect on the heart muscle.

Lingonberry is a perennial evergreen semi-shrub of the lingonberry family, 10-30 cm high, with a creeping rhizome and erect branching stems. The use of cranberries in medicine is due to the useful substances contained in it. The use of cranberries is recommended as an infusion. This remedy from the leaves has diuretic and astringent properties. Mature berries have antirotinous and vitamin properties, juice - sedative property. Budra ivy - a perennial herbaceous plant from the family of sponges. Properties of buddleia are known to many pharmacologists and phytotherapists. In the herb found essential oil (0.03-0.06%), which contains aldehydes, tannins and bitter substances, choline, saponins, resin. In the leaves, 78.9 mg% of ascorbic acid is found. However, the properties of buddleia are poorly understood.