Description: A vigorous perennial climber with a prostrate, branching rootstock and numerous roots. Stems are up to 6 m long, twining, square and tough, covered with rough, spiky hairs. The rough leaves on long petioles are variable in shape, from cordate to three-lobed, coarsely serrate. The hop has separate male and female plants, flowering from May till July. The yellow male flowers are arranged in axillary or apical clusters. The female flowers are pendulous, scaly, cone-like, light green during flowering time, pale yellow when mature, bearing golden-yellow glands filled with lupulin. In hop gardens only the female plants are cultivated, as only the fruits, or hops, are used.
Distribution: The wild hop grows throughout the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, usually in moist places such as thickets along brooks and rivers.
Harvesting and Preparation: Only the female fruits, or hops, are gathered; sterile fruits from cultivated hops are more valuable than wild ones. They are picked at the end of August and carefully dried at 40-50° C.
Constituents: Up to 1 per cent volatile oil, consisting mainly of myrcene (30-50 per cent), beta-caryophyllene (20-40 per cent), dipentene, humulene, linalool and geraniol. Also important components of the volatile oil are resins, with the specific bitter substances humulone, cohumulone, lupulone, colupulone and xanthohumulone.
Cosmetic Uses: The oestrogens contained in hops are used cosmetically forslowing down and delaying the skin ageing process. The discovery of this property is by no means a new one; brewery sludge was used in the Middle Ages for rejuvenating baths (the so-called ‘fountains of youth’). Hop extracts are used in creams, face lotions and milks for sensitive skin, and for sagging and impure skin, as an ingredient in soothing and regenerative baths. Also, most importantly, hops are used in special ‘beer shampoos’ intended to prevent brittleness and make the hair glossy. Beer as such can be successfully used as a hair rinse.
Other Uses: Hops are important mainly for the production of beer, a popular beverage throughout the world. Hops are used medicinally in sedatives and mild hypnotics and regulators of the digestive processes.
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