ALHARMA (alharma peganum harmala)

	A
	ALHARMA
	*alharma peganum harmala*

Name
ALHARMA

Scientific Name
alharma peganum harmala

ALHARMA

Alharma is a herbaceous plant pertaining to the family of the zigofiláceas. It is a very graft plant, with the branches slightly in zigzag, very populated with leaves and all she lampiña. The flowers leave one in one, are maintained by short stalks of a peduncle, with a chalice of five very narrow sépalos, lineares, and some teeth to each side. The fruit is a globulose capsule a little depressed that is opened by three valvas, with angular seeds. The leaves have a herbaceous flavor. One grows up in incultos, ribazos places and escombreras, generally in the deserts of dry Spain, from the river basin of the Ebro to the central plateau and Andalusia.

Alharma later blooms as of the month of April in the south of the country and something in the river basin of the Ebro and the center of Spain. This flowering usually extends the summer throughout. Of the harvesting with medicinal aims they interest exclusively the seeds, that they take shelter at the end of the summer and they keep in hermetic containers to avoid that the contained active principles in them are degraded.

In the seeds of alharma, located mainly in the rind, are three called alkaloids harmina, harmalol and harmalina. Some authors speak of a fourth alkaloid, found during the process of extraction of the three previous ones, peganina call, that is structurally identical to the found one in other plants of different families. From immemorial times - mainly partly of many Arab towns the seeds of alharma have been used under diverse forms to procure a fleeting embriaguez. It is counted in numerous books that these seeds were used to obtain to a state of extreme joy and euphoria, being used by all type of magicians, healers and chamanes to praise the spirit. This gives to test of the virtues of this plant, being the excitation its more remarkable property us. But when one is any drug it is not necessary to forget the possibility that indirect effect appear, that can be extremely dangerous if the ingested amount is superior to the allowed one. This is not difficult if we consider that the seeds can be more or less rich in active principles and that in some cases a handful of seeds can take amount of drug sufficient to kill an individual. Therefore, its use must be always subject to medical prescription. The seeds are not due to never use of homemade form, since the difference between the active dose and the toxic dose is very small. In case they are prescribed by a facultative one, this he will be the one in charge to establish the dose to use.

Exciting. Emenagogo. Toxic.

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