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==News About Ephedra== | ==News About Ephedra== | ||
'''Ephedra Shrubs have a Long Medicinal History''' | |||
*Source:http://mvprogress.com/2013/04/03/ephedra-shrubs-have-a-long-medicinal-history/ | |||
:By BRUCE LUND | |||
This spring is turning out to be a good wildflower season! Walk in the desert in this first week of April and you’ll find bright yellow flowers of the Desert Marigold, Bead-Pod Mustard, Gold-Poppy, and tall Yellow Cups (aka, Sundrops); white Prickly Poppies with their golden centers, tiny Desert Stars just an inch high and Desert Chicories; stands of purple Phacelias flourishing on gravel banks and the first shocking pink flowers of the Beavertail cactus popping up across the desert. | |||
While the big showy flowers get all the photographs, many other intriguing plants get overlooked because they are wind-pollinated with diminutive flowers. Instead of putting their energy into producing a few big showy flowers to attract pollinating insects, these plants focus their energy into producing huge numbers of tiny flowers stripped down to the bare male and female parts needed for pollination. Our half dozen shrubby Ephedras are a prime example of this wind-pollination lifestyle, and it gets better because they carry flower specialization one step further: for even more energy efficiency, each plant produces only male or female flowers. | |||
At the height of pollen production, the huge numbers of male flowers color their Ephedra shrubs a bright yellow, and then fade to a rusty color as the pollen matures and are carried off by the wind. But you really should take a close look and see how the individual male flowers are compacted into clusters that look like miniature pine cones, and how, as each individual flower cone matures, they send out stalked stamens with swollen tips covered with tiny yellow pollen grains that give each cone a fuzzy look. | |||
In contrast, female flowers look more like traditional flowers with petals (although these are actually a cluster of scales that happen to look like petals). In the center of each flower are one to four unfertilized seeds with tiny stigmas sticking up at the top of each seed (this can be hard to see) which are the landing sites upon which the male pollen has to land. Since the chance of a microscopic pollen grain hitting a tiny stigma is infinitesimal, male flowers produce huge amounts of pollen to achieve pollination. It’s sort of like buying a million tickets to win a lottery vastly improves – but does not guarantee – your chances of winning. | |||
Ephedra’s intense wind pollination effort passes quickly with the male flowers drying up and dropping away in a week or two. | |||
It’s different with the female flower where the ‘petals’ dry and drop away as well, but exposing the mature seeds along the stems. Besides being potential future plants, these are also nutritious packages of energy and eagerly sought by kangaroo rats, ground squirrels, birds, and even people. Of course, many seeds get dropped in transport from plants to dens, being a way of spreading new plants across the landscape. | |||
When a plant has a long list of common names, it indicates a long history of human use for food, medicine, and/or structural uses, and Ephedra has a LOT of names including: Mormon Tea (used as an acceptable substitute for tea and coffee by pioneering Mormons), Cowboy Tea, Brigham Tea (Brigham Young supposedly liked this tea), Ma Huang (the Ephedra species with by far the strongest concentration of Ephedrine comes from China and has been used there for thousands of years), Whorehouse Tea (served in certain Nevada establishments because it was believed to be a treatment for venereal diseases), Squaw or Indian Tea (used by Native Americans), Joint-fir (from the structure of the stems that resemble – with a lot of imagination – the leaves of fir trees), and many more. | |||
So why do Ephedras have such a long history of human use? However it happened, records dating back 5,000 years show that early peoples in China discovered that drinking teas made from Ephedra gave an energy boost and had other medicinal effects. Today we know the 40 or so species of Ephedra found in arid areas around the Earth produce a chemical we call ephedrine, and that it is a nerve stimulant (similar to the effect of caffeine in coffee or tea) plus diuretic and decongestant qualities. It makes sense that the Chinese were the first to discover this as they have the one species that has, by far, the highest concentration of ephedrine and other chemicals. So while other species around the world have some level of active ingredients, only the Chinese species packs a wallop while our species basically gives a tea some flavoring and a tiny energy boost at best. | |||
But don’t take it from me – if you’re curious to learn more about the medicinal facts and myths about ephedra, take a look on-line where you will find thousands of sites. | |||
In the meantime, get out quickly if you want to see Ephedra in flower as it will pass in a couple of weeks. | |||
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'''Ephedra: A beneficial and controversial herb''' | '''Ephedra: A beneficial and controversial herb''' | ||
*Source:http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/07/ephedra-beneficial-and-controversial-herb.html | *Source:http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/07/ephedra-beneficial-and-controversial-herb.html | ||