Ceylon Pig or Chitrak (Latin Plumbago Zeylanica, Chitrak) other names: plumbago, plumbago Ceylon, doctorcoust, etc.
Ceylon Pig is a perennial herbaceous plant or shrub of the Piglet or Plumbaginaceae family, reaching a height of up to 2 meters.
Leaves are spirally arranged, simple, whole, 0.5-12 cm long, often with hairy veins, tapering to the base.
The flowers are large, almost sessile, collected in racemose or spike-shaped inflorescences. The calyx is tubular, after the end of the flowering period, conical, with five wide, densely iron ribs. The glands on the cup secrete a sticky liquid that can hold insects. The corolla with a narrow tube is much longer than the calyx and has a five-blade limb. Five fused petals of white, pink, blue, purple or red. Ovary is oblong. The column is threadlike, later hairy. The stigmas are filiform, coarsely glandular inside, in an amount of five.
The fruit is oblong-ovoid in shape, ripening at the base as it ripens and almost folds cracking in the upper part.
The roots are very poisonous!
Distributed in the Caucasus and Central Asia on stony slopes, rocks and in gorges at an altitude of up to 1500 m above sea level.
Chemical composition
The composition of the plant contains the following components:
- phenol carboxylic acids;
- vanillic acids;
- cinnamic acids;
- plumbaginic acids;
- tannins;
- plumbagin (3%);
- hydroxychromone;
- beta sitosterol;
- hydroxybenzaldehyde;
- iso-sinanolone;
- carboxaldehyde.
Chitrak is widely used in Ayurveda as a medicinal plant with excellent stimulating, diaphoretic, carminative and choleretic properties. Means are made from the roots to normalize intestinal microflora, improve digestive processes, and also for the treatment of dyspepsia. Milk, vinegar or salt and water are added to the root paste and the resulting composition is applied externally for various skin ailments, for example, leprosy.
Chitrack is used for cold infusions in diseases such as flu and hemoglobinuric fever (black water fever).
Chitrak is one of the best medicinal Ayurvedic plants for improving digestion, liver, spleen and small intestine.
The most valuable active ingredient in Ceylon Pig is plumbagin (a naphthoquinone derivative). The roots of the plant enriched with plumbagin are subjected to a special treatment to obtain an extract that is added to various medicinal products for the treatment of liver diseases.
Studies have revealed the ability of plumbagin to prevent the accumulation of triglycerides in the liver and aorta, which can cause a regression of the development of such phenomena as atheromatous plaques in the abdominal aorta. In addition, the activity of the chloroform extract of the roots of Ceylon Piggy against penicillin-resistant and non-penicillin-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoea gonococcus was revealed (plant roots are used in the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases).
In some regions, chitrack is used to make drugs for the treatment of diseases of the uterus, mammary glands, lungs, and hemorrhoids.
Traditionally, Chitraq is used as an anti-ulcer drug, as well as to prevent the formation of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
Included in Midona Ultra, Reumaker Ultra, Safaya Ultra.