Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench.
Echinacea angustifolia Rudbechia (L.)
Echinacea pallida
Fam Asteraceae
Subfam. Tubuliflorae
Description
The echinacea is a perennial herbaceous plant, lively, with a simple stem, 1-1.5 m high, hollow at the base that tapers upwards.
Leaves petiolate the basal, sessile the highest, ovate (in Echinacea purpurea.), elongated elliptical-lanceolate (in E.angustifolia e in E. pallida), with entire margin and three salient ribs.
Fruit: it is a tapered achene with a quadrangular section with a crown (pappus), light brown in color or with a darker band at the apex ( in Echinacea pallida and E. angustifolia).
The taproot (E. angustifolia and pallida) or collated (Echinacea purpurea) is cylindrical irregular brown in color with V-shaped scars.
Echinacea it also has an underground rhizome for vegetative reproduction.
The seeds are pear-shaped.
The taste is first sweet, then bittersweet; the smell is nil.
Areal
To the genre Echinacea belong 9 species native to the temperate zones of North America, from the border with Canada to the Rocky Mountains, up to the Gulf of Mexico, where these plants were used by the Indian populations to heal wounds and to treat snake bites. Currently 3 species are cultivated for commercial use: E. pallida, E. angustifolia, E.purpurea ..
Echinacea angustifolia it prefers cold climates and arid grasslands with various types of loose soils, with pH up to 8.
Echinaceapallida it lives in sparse woods, rocky grasslands and more humid soils.
Echinacea purpurea lives in broad grasslands and groves.
Culture
Echinacea it is cultivated both as an ornamental and a pharmaceutical plant, with different varieties.
Climate: from desert-steppe to cooler and more humid.
Soil: from poor to more fertile.
Crop rotation: do not plant after corn or sugar beet, but after fodder cereals, sunflowers or legumes. Use organic, non-chemical fertilizers. Propagation is done either by seed or by division of the tufts or with "in vitro" techniques. The germination capacity of the seed lasts 3 years.
Sowing: dormancy is high in E. angustifolia, low in the other 2. The healthy seed, after disinfection with sodium hypochlorite and rinsing with specific fungicides, is planted at a temperature between 15 and 25 ° C. When the seedling is 6-10 cm high and has 2 true leaves developed (after about two months of cultivation), transplantation is carried out in the field. It is generally done in spring by placing the plants in rows 40-50 cm apart and 20-30 cm apart. This allows a mechanical harvest.
Adversity: Echinacea is affected by the watermelon mosaic virus (CMV) which causes alterations and yellowing of the leaves, reduction of the petals and dwarfism, which compromises the yields of the plant and alters the chemical composition of the extracts obtained from it. It is useful to use organic farming methods, with predatory insects, Bordeaux mixture, pyrethrum and to ventilate well.
Harvest: both the aerial epigeal part (in full bloom) and the underground part, roots, (in autumn) are collected from the 2nd year. In Italy about 30 Ha are cultivated in Piedmont, Veneto, Umbria, Tuscany, Sardinia, Basilicata and Puglia. Neither latitude nor altitude is important for the yield in active principles.
Uses
Echinacea is one of the most widely used medicinal plants in the pharmacological field, due to its multiple therapeutic uses, even if the action is not related to the individual constituents: it has an immunostimulating action relating to flu and colds, with an adaptogenic drug configuration adjuvant of recurrent respiratory and urinary tract infections.
Important is the preventive effect of the extract, taken for a few days at the first symptoms. It also has antibacterial and ulcerative activity: the root is used to make ointments for bandaging wounds and ulcers. It also has antiviral and radical-scavenger activity
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