Key Points in Picking Medicinal Herbs

Picking place
The areas where the medicinal plants grow aren’t always the appropriated picking places if the soil is too dried or wet, if it is a cemetery, a precipice or a cliff, a place lacking in shade or also a polluted place.
On the contrary, if the plants grow in a clean and nice area, with enough sun and wind, if the hygrometry is balanced and the soil fertile, the place is favorable for picking. The medicinal herbs with cold potentiality must be searched out on the north side of mountains, in very cool shady places, as well as on peaks. They are very effective against illnesses considered to have warm causes.
The medicinal herbs with warm potentiality must be searched out on the south side of mountains, in very sunny places. They are said to be very effective against complaints considered to have cold causes.
In the same way, if the plants chosen for picking are bright-coloured, if they are tasty when raised to your lips, if their roots are long and go deep in the soil, if they haven’t been damaged by insects, fire, frost or hail, they will be very efficient to fight off illnesses.

Picking period

The appropriated picking period is when medicinal plants have grown until they are potentially totally mature.
Stems are cut during wet periods. Roots are dig out at the end of autumn and the beginning of spring. Leaves are cut in summer whereas flowers are cut in full blossom. Fruits are harvested in autumn when they are mature. So are seeds, at the same period of year. Barks are removed at the beginning of spring, whereas resin or gum is extracted at the middle of this season.
Purgative plants (“that lead to the bottom”) with earth and water potentialities have the special feature of being picked in descendant period (autumn – winter), whereas emetic plants (“that lead to the top”) with fire and air potentiality are picked in ascendant period (spring – summer).

Drying technique

After picking, medicinal herbs are dried following very specific methods. Pebbles, earth and other kind of dirt covering them are generally removed and plants are directly washed on the spot with water.
Once cut, they are squeezed and shaken with clean hands to extract juice from them, before being quickly dried. The medicines prepared in this way don’t lose quality flavour and taste, and keep all their efficiency against illnesses.
It they aren’t shaken and if they dry by themselves, medicinal herbs will be as tasteless and inefficient as mere yellowed plants. In normal times, Medicinal herbs with cold potentiality, oleaginous plants and those that nature easily changes, must be dried in a cold and dried place whereas medicines with warm potentiality will be dried in the sun.
On no account the operation can be soiled, either by saliva or dirty hands… it has to be done in totally hygienic.

Useful life of medicine

When we speak about “medicines freshness”, this means that they mustn’t be old. For example, every plant picked becomes too old after a year and loses efficiency.
It is thus necessary to get rid of it to prepare new medicines. As for seeds and fruits, it is also necessary to know their aspect well.

Detoxification

When picking medicinal herbs, toxic matter must be extracted at the appropriated moment, by taking a great number of precautions.
It can be necessary to remove the epidermis from roots, stems or other parts in other plants, their pith (parenchyma), or also knots of branches… knowing vegetal morphology well is still necessary.
As regards leaves and flowers, the phyllomes must be removed, and for fruits, the endocarp and the stone, even if the latter has to be kept in some cases. The epidermis – damaged, soiled or blackened under the influence of sun and rain – must be removed too. Besides, a keen knowledge of what constitutes latex, parenchyma or stones is also required.
As immediate detoxification is essential, those planning to learn these processes will consult the fundamental books of Tibetan medicine about medicinal preparation.
Countless kinds of medicinal plants grow on the Tibetan plateau. Picking them by the rule book is very important to ensure an optimal quality for medicines.
With all the necessary knowledge about taste, cold, heat, roots, leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, etc. picking can’t be superficially studied.
Besides, practice and experience remain essential to adapt academic knowledge to local circumstances, because the picking period can be brought forward or delayed depending on the area altitude, the rainfall level or the microclimate.

MEDICINAL USES OF PALASH

Taxonomy
Current name: Butea monosperma
Authority: (Lam.) Taub.
Family: Fabaceae - PapilionoideaeSynonym(s)
Butea frondosa Roxb. ex. Willd.
Erythrina monosperma Lam


Common names


(Bengali) : palas, polashi
(Marathi) : palash
(English) : bastard teak, flame-of-the-forest
(Hindi) : chalcha, chichra tesu, desuka jhad, dhak, palas
(Nepali) : dhak, palans, paras
(Sanskrit) : palasha
(Tamil) : parasa, parasu, porasum




Botanic description


Butea monosperma is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree, 5-15 (max. 20) m tall, up to 43 cm dbh; trunk usually crooked and tortuous, with rough greyish-brown, fibrous bark showing a reddish exudate; branchlets densely pubescent. Leaves trifoliate; petiole 7.5-20 cm long with small stipules; leaflets more or less leathery, lateral ones obliquely ovate, terminal one rhomboid-obovate, 12-27 x 10-26 cm, obtuse, rounded or emarginate at apex, rounded to cuneate at base, with 7-8 pairs of lateral veins, stipellate. Flowers in racemes, 5-40 cm long, near the top on usually leafless branchlets; calyx with campanulate tube and 4 short lobes; corolla 5-7 cm long, standard, wings and keel recurved, all about the same length, bright orange-red, more rarely yellow, very densely pubescent. Fruit an indehiscent pod, (min. 9) 17-24 x (min. 3) 4-6 cm, stalked, covered with short brown hairs, pale yellowish-brown or grey when ripe, in the lower part flat, with a single seed near the apex. Seed ellipsoid, flattened, about 3 cm long.

Natural Habitat

B. monosperma is a tree of tropical and subtropical climate. Found throughout the drier parts of India, often gregarious in forests, open grasslands and wastelands. It is a characteristic tree of the plains, often forming pure patches in grazing grounds and other open places, escaping extermination owing to its resistance to browsing and its ability to reproduce from seed and root suckers. In its native habitat, most of the rain is received during the monsoon season, while the autumn and summer months are generally dry. The tree is very drought resistant and frost hardy, although the leaves turn white and fall off.Geographic distributionNative : Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, VietnamExotic : China, Papua New GuineaBiophysical limitsAltitude: Up to 1 500 m, Mean annual temperature: -4 -49 deg. C, Mean annual rainfall: 450-4500 mm Soil type: It grows on a wide variety of soils including shallow, gravelly sites, black cotton soil, clay loams, and even saline or waterlogged soils. Seedlings thrive best on a rich loamy soil with pH 6-7 under high temperature and relative humidity.Reproductive BiologyLeaves are shed during the dry season. At the beginning of the rainy season, the leafless tree flowers abundantly and is very conspicuous in the forest. At the end of the flowering period, new leaves develop, which are initially a pale bronze-tinged green. Birds are the chief pollinators.

Functional uses

Products
Fodder: In India, young leaves are good fodder, eaten mainly by buffaloes. Though the leaves are fairly rich in nutrients, digestibility values are low, comparable only to those of straws.
Fuel: Wood makes a fuel of moderate quality. Leaves are sometimes used as a fuel. The wood is burnt for gunpowder charcoal.
Fibre: A coarse fibrous material obtained from the inner bark is used for cordage, caulking the seams of boats and making paper.
Timber: The soft and not durable wood is light, about 570 kg/m³ air dry, white or yellowish-brown when fresh, but often turning greyish because of susceptibility to sap stain. It is not of great value but is sometimes used for utensils.
Gum or resin: A red exudate is obtained from the bark, hardening into a gum known as ‘butea gum’ or ‘Bengal kino’. It can be used as a dye and as tannin.
Tannin or dyestuff: A bright yellow to deep orange-red dye, known as butein, prepared from the flowers is used especially for dyeing silk and sometimes for cotton. This dye is used by Hindus to mark the forehead. The bark is used for tanning.
Lipids: The seeds yield a clear oil. Poison: Seeds show bactericidal and fungicidal activities. Medicine: The flowers are useful in the treatment of liver disorders and seeds act as an anthelmintic. An astringent gum oozing from the cut stem has medicinal properties as a powerful astringent and is applied in cases of diarrhoea. Other products: In India, the tree is an important host for the lac insect (Laccifer lacca), which produces shellac. Of all the lac trees, it yields the most lac stick per hectare.

LAC FROM PALASH

INTRODUCTION :

Lac is the hardened resin secreted by the tiny lac insect. Lac insects thrive only on certain trees called lac hosts. Butea monosperma (Palas), Zizyphus mauritiana (Ber) and Schleichera oleosa (Kusum) are the major lac hosts used in India. The insect starts its life as a larva or nymph which is about 0.6 mm long and 0.25 mm wide across the thorax. The young settles down on a suitable place of the host plant gregariously. On the average some 150 of such larvae may be present per square inch of the twig. They have the typical piercing and sucking mouthparts as in all other Homoptera. A day or two after settlement, the larvae start secreting lac all around the body excepting the rostrum, the brachial plates and tip of the abdomen. Thus it gets encased in a cell of lac which gradually increases in size along with the increase in size of the insect. The insect moults twice before reaching maturity. The duration of each larval inster depends on environmental factors, such as, temperature, humidity, host plant etc. The male larvae produce elongated lac cells while the females produce oval.
After the first moult, the male as well as the female larvae lose their legs, antennae and eyes. After the 3rd moult, the larvae pass on to the so-called pupal stage. During this stage the mouthparts become atrophied in male insects and they stop feeding. The male lac insect may be winged or wingless and they copulate with the females while they are still in encased condition.
During development, the female larvae lose their appendages after the first moult. As the lac insects remain close together, lac secretion from adjacent cells coalesces with each other and forms a continuous encrustation on the tree branch.
Lac culture involves two important steps: (i) inoculation, and (ii) cropping. Inoculation can be carried out through self-infection or artificial infection. In any case the brood lac is necessary. Artificial inoculation is most suitable immediately after crop cutting. In doing so, the brood lac (10 to 30 cm long) are to be tied in bundles of 2 or 3 sticks and in turn they should be tied up to the branches of the host tree. Care should be taken while tieing the bundles so that they have contacts with the branches. The brood lac bundles should be kept on the host tree for 2-3 weeks. If kept longer, ie even after the complete emergence of the lac larvae, there is the danger of a large number of enemy insects emerging from the empty brood lac sticks. Lac crops should be reaped only when mature.
There are four seasons of lac cultivation and according to the Bengali calendar, they have been named as Kartiki, Aghrani, Baisakhi, and Jesthi. The crop period, from inoculation to harvesting, for Kartiki, ranges from July to November, for Aghrani, from July to February, Baisakhi, from November to July, and Jesthi, from February to July. In Nawabganj areas lac is cultivated only once a year, ie Jesthi. In December, after harvesting the plum fruits, Z. jujuba trees are pruned. In January young shoots come up. The brood sticks are tied adjacent to the growing tender branches in the way described earlier. Within a week or two the larvae settle down. Through out the period (February-June) the lac insects secrete a resinous crust on them. In July they are harvested. The branches of Z. jujuba trees are cut into smaller pieces (2 to 4 feet) and tied in bundles. The encrusted lac is then scrapped off the stick and processed in order to get the crude lac.
In the late sixties a Lac Culture Centre was established in Nawabganj which is now almost non-functional. Obviously the lac cultivation is also reduced to its lowest ebb. Most of the locally available lac is of Indian origin. Generally the crude lac is imported, and those locally produced, are extracted in Rajshahi. Lac cultivation involves five major operations which are pruning, inoculation, used up broodlac (phunki) removal, harvesting and lac scraping. Mostly, lac cultivation operations are carried out manually with the aid of locally manufactured traditional tools. Manual lac scraping is a very slow and tedious process. In one method, farmers sit on the ground in a group and scrape lac with the traditional tools like a small scraping knife (dauli) and sickle. In another method, farmers remove lac encrustation by beating lac sticks with bamboo stick. One person scrapes 5-10kg of lac in a day. As scraping is done on the ground, unwanted foreign materials like sand, soil, and wooden twigs find their way into scraped lac, reducing the price to farmers and creating problems during lac processing in industries. In order to increase the output and reduce the drudgery of lac production, a simple power operated roller type lac scraper was designed and developed. The machine consists of a scraper, separation screen, feed hopper, drive mechanism and machine frame. The machine scrapes lac under the action of shear and compressive forces. One person operates the machine and scraps about 13.5kg lac stick in an hour with scraping efficiency of 95 percent.
ECONOMY OF LAC
Approximately 3 million people are engaged in the production of lac in India. On an average, India produces 18 thousand tonnes of lac per year. It is an export-oriented product. Some 80% of the country's total production is exported that earns approximately US$16-22 millions as foreign exchange annually.
The word lac is the English version of Persian and Hindi words that mean “hundred thousand,” indicating the large number of the minute insects required to produce lac. In fact, about 17,000 to 90,000 insects are needed to produce one pound of shellac.
Lac has been used in medicine, dye and resin for over thousand years. India is a leading country in the world for lac production from where 70-80 % requirements of the world are fulfilled.
Lakhera or Lakheri is a community migrated from Marwar or Rajputana in North western India and settled in some areas of Maharashtra. This community has derived it's name Lakhera or Lakheri from Lakh or Lac. They are the makers of the lac bangles and some other articles from lac or lacquer.
Deforested natural forests where large number of wild sapling and trees of lac host trees are available are required to be conserved for regular and fruitful future employment opportunities for coming generation. One can earn about Rs. 39,000 in. the first year on one hectare of land, while this benefit will increase to the Rs. 55,000 in second year. One can get two crops of lac a year, once in the month of June / July and second time in the month of November / December. Each tree producing 5 kg in each crop. Washed and cleaned, the lac sells for Rs 100-Rs 120 per kg in the market.
LAC IN ANCIENT INDIA
In India, lac, lacquer or shellac products have been used from as early as about 1200 B.C as plastic and decorative materials. During the 17th century, after traders had introduced lac dye and, later, shellac to Europe, lac became commercially important there.
The ancient India, red lac and betel leaf juice were used as lipsticks as well as decorative stains for women's palms.
PROBLEMS LAC CULTIVATORS FACE
Lack of adequate processing facilities
The absence of adequate processing facilities, makes lac cultivators unable to realize the full value of their product. This is because the market value of crude lac is rather limited in comparison to the final processed products such as Shellac which commands a premium in the market.
Inefficient extraction method
The lac dye is isolated during the processing and is a valuable product for the textile industry as a colouring agent. The pigment content of the sticklac can be as high as 10% but the yield of isolated lac dye usually is less than 1% due to the inefficient extraction method.