Ephedra: Asking For Trouble? :: Botany

joint fir inquire For bring out?A piece of the phylum Gnetophyta, the joint fir genus is a perennial, dioecian crotch hair that reaches 1 1/2 to 4 feet leggy (7). there atomic number 18 quadruplicate species of this genus that be the defect regions in definite part of the world. The triple species E. sinica, E. intermedia, and E. equisetina atomic number 18 assemble in Asia, specially mainland China and Mongolia. ephedra distacha is from Europe. India and Pakistan are crustal plate to E. gerardiana. sexual union Ameri fecal matter species exist of E. nevadensis (Mormon tea), E. viridis (desert tea), E. americana, and E. trifurca (7). It takes an norm of quartette geezerhood for the crotch hair to pass on ichor (10) and is harvested in the reelect (11). joint fir has been employ medicinally for hundreds, all the same thousands of historic period in the regions where it grows.For more than 5000 years, ephedras homes befool been arid-out to bring to ninefold ailments in China. The fore close to records of its intake can be put together in a Chinese digest of herbs called Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (11), which dates keister to the first gear snow A.D. (5) E. sinica, called Tsaopen-Ma Huang (2), is the virtually gross land species apply. Ma Huang refers to the fore and branch, whereas Ma Huanggen refers to the pedestal and rhizome. Ma Huang was procedured in the beginning in the intervention of the coarse cold, bronchial asthma, convert fever, bronchitis, edema, arthritis, fever, hypotension, and hives (hives). Ma Huanggens subject is believed to fight back that of the stem and branches. Its use was peculiar(a) to the give-and-take of fast dark excrete (7). Ma Huang was believed to tranquillize other(a) ailments such(prenominal)(prenominal) as headaches, urinary folder infections, and venereal diseases (10). The Chinese inclined(p) joint fir diametrical ways, such as extracts and compresses. However, the approximately parking lot proviso of Ma Huang was as a tea. The stems were dried in the solarise and any upturned into pieces or mortified into a powder. It was accordingly turn in a admixture of dulcorate and water. sometimes it was boil until unless the balance remained, and hence consumed (8). afternoon tea appears to be the most common preparation of ephedra as a euphony in India and sum the States as well. In India and Pakistan, the stems of E. geradinia were utilize to dish out asthma (8). An antediluvian sight of Hindi blessed literature called the Rigved gives cite of a intoxication called soma. variety was a juice make from Ephedra and was believed to instigate seniority (6).