Prunella vulgaris
Small (Prunella vulgaris)
The Little Brown Elle, also Small Brunelle or Ordinary (Prunella vulgaris ) is a plant of the genus Ellen Brown ( Prunella ) in the mint family ( Lamiaceae).
Description
The Little Brown Elle is an evergreen, mostly perennial Hemikryptophyt. It forms rooted aboveground foothills, with which they can reproduce vegetatively. The stems are 5 to 30 cm tall, are hairy ascending and sparse. The leaves are petiolate, entire, elliptic or ovate, with entire or notched edge.
The crowded inflorescence is 1-4 cm long and usually sits directly above the uppermost foliage leaf pair. The sepals upper lip ends in three very short teeth, of which the average is much wider than the lateral, lower lip lanceolate in two sharp teeth. The approximately 7 to 15 mm long petals are blue-violet, rarely whitish.
Rare Plants are only available with female flowers, in which the crown is noticeably smaller and the cup hardly dominated.
At the similar large-flowered Braunelle following features are different: The top pair of leaves located directly at the base of the inflorescence. The approximately 7 to 15 mm long crown is more than twice as long as the calyx.
The chromosome number is 2n = 28
Ecology
The sticky Klausen- fruits are surrounded by fruit cup, which opens in damp weather within a minute hydrochas and then projecting horizontally. Falling rain drops on this prolonged calyx lip, the clause will be thrown out. The clause will be so laid out as Regenballist; but also spread as Klebhafter and a random dispersal by ungulates is possible. Fruit ripening takes place in August. The long-lived seeds are light to germinate.
Occurrence
The Little Brown Elle flowers from June to October dry grassland, on creep and impact lawn, on moist meadows or pastures, or at edges of forest roads. The plant is widely distributed from the Mediterranean to boreal Europe and western Asia and has been widely abducted in the temperate zones of the northern and southern hemispheres. It is a widespread, common plant in Central Europe and comes from the plains to the mountains to about 2000 m altitude before. Are pollinated their flowers especially of bumblebees and other Hymenoptera.
Pharmacology and Ethnobotany
The Little Brown Elle was used in the Middle Ages to treat the tan 's disease, which causes skin discoloration. Boy, non flowering plant parts can be used as a salad or as a spice.
The plant contains tannins ( tannins ), flavonoids, terpenes (1,8 -cineole, camphor ), triterpenes ( ursolic acid ), saponins and other active ingredients. It is used in Asia as a traditional medicinal plant with various ailments. In Europe, it is now less well known. Any astringent applications are explained by the tannins contained, and the known terpenes act naturally, as in other essential oils.
The rosmarinic acid contained in the Little Brown Elle is the cause for their application in the cosmetics industry, which processes them in preparations for protecting the skin from ultraviolet radiation. Preparations of the Fruchtähre are immunosuppressive in mice. On the other hand, an ingredient of the Little Brown Elle, the polysaccharide Prunellin, some activity against the HIV virus could be demonstrated and the effectiveness against herpes simplex strains are shown in another laboratory study in a laboratory study from 1986 that are resistant to acyclovir were.