Humulus Lupulus:Hops Applications more than Herb Beers.
Article Content:
- .Brief Description and Basic Data.
- .Botanical Description of Hops.
- .Name Identification and Archeology of Hops.
- .Medicinal Action and Uses of Hops.
- .Identification of a potent phytoestrogen in hops (Humulus lupulus L.) and beer.
- .Hops and Recipes for Herb Beers.
- .Actions,Indications,Pharmacology of Hops.
- .Combination,Caution,and Comments of Hops.
- .Phytochemical Constituents of Hops.
- .Hops and Its finding tips.
- .How Search engine think about Hops.
- .Research Update:Hops and its findings.
Botanical Description of Hops.
Hops is also known by the name Hop Bine. Hops grows throughout Europe, Asia and North America, and belongs to the same group of plants as the stinging nettle. The word "Hops" comes from "hoppan", meaning "to climb" in reference to Hops being a climbing vine.
Humulus is a climbing perennial. The annual stems twist in a clockwise direction, growing up to 6m in length and giving rise to 3-5-lobed sharply-toothed leaves with a very rough surface. The smaller leaves are single lobed. The flowers are dioecious: the small male flowers occur in loose panicles in the upper leaf axils, the female ones in closely-stacked, cone-like catkins made up of bracts with tiny flowers tucked into the axils. The cones grow threefold after fertilisation, up to 5cm in length, and change colour from pale greenish-yellow to yellow-brown. This herb is found Europe to Asia and favours hedgerows, thickets and open woods.
The Hop (Humulus Lupulus, Linn.) is a native British plant, having affinities, botanically speaking, with the group of plants to which the Stinging Nettles belong. The sole representative of its genus in these islands, it is found wild in hedges and copses from York southwards, being only considered an introduced species in Scotland, and rare and not indigenous in Ireland. It is found in most countries of the North temperate zone.
The root is stout and perennial. The stem that arises from it every year is of a twining nature, reaching a great length, flexible and very tough, angled and prickly, with a tenacious fibre, which has enabled it to be employed to some extent in Sweden in the manufacture of a coarse kind of cloth, white and durable, though the fibres are so difficult of separation, that the stems require to be steeped in water a whole winter. Paper has also been made from the stem, or bine, as it is termed.
The leaves are heart-shaped and lobed, on foot-stalks, and as a rule placed opposite one another on the stem, though sometimes the upper leaves are arranged singly on the stem, springing from altenate sides. They are of a dark-green colour with their edges finely toothed.
The flowers spring from the axils of the leaves. The Hop is dioecious, i.e. male and female flowers are on separate plants. The male flowers are in loose bunches or panicles, 3 to 5 inches long. The female flowers are in leafy cone-like catkins, called strobiles. When fully developed, the strobiles are about 1 1/4 inch long, oblong in shape and rounded, consisting of a number of overlapping, yellowish-green bracts, attached to a separate axis. If these leafy organs are removed, the axis will be seen to be hairy and to have a little zigzag course. Each of the bracts enfolds at the base a small fruit (achene), both fruit and bract being sprinkled with yellow translucent glands, which appear as a granular substance. Much of the value of Hops depends on the abundance of this powdery substance, which contains 10 per cent of Lupulin, the bitter principle to which Hops owe much of their tonic properties.
As it is, these ripened cones of the female Hop plant that are used in brewing, female plants only are cultivated, since from these alone can the fruits be obtained. Those with undeveloped seeds are preferred to ensure which the staminate plants are excluded, only a few male plants being found scattered over a plantation of hops.
We find the Hop first mentioned by Pliny, who speaks of it as a garden plant among the Romans, who ate the young shoots in spring, in the same way as we do asparagus, and as country people frequently do in England at the present day. The young tops of Hop used formerly to be brought to market tied up in small bundles for table use. The tender first foliage, blanched, is a good potherb.
The leaves and flower-heads also have been used also to produce a fine brown dye.
Cultivation of Hops:
It has been estimated that in pre-war times 70 per cent of the Hops used in brewing was home produce and 30 per cent imported, chiefly from the United States and Germany. Hops are also grown in France,West China,South Russia, Australia and New Zealand.
Reference:
1.Humulus Lupulus:Hops Applications more than Herb Beers.
Statistics
Spectrum
FAQ
Of Herbs