A perennial herbaceous plant with a specific smell and multiple stems that become woody with age, usually reaching 50-65 cm in height. A powerful, two- or three-headed taproot penetrates deep into the soil, thus providing the plant with moisture and nutrients. The branches are sinuous, bare, green in color.
The leaves are arranged alternately, sessile, palmately dissected into several segments. Some large harmala bushes contain up to 140 stems with a crown diameter of 110-150 cm. Intensive growth of the above-ground part is noted in late March and early April. Then the budding period begins.
Flowers are numerous, pale yellow or white, located 2-3 at the tops of young branches and mature stems. The calyx is dissected into five linear sepals, the corolla consists of 5 petals, stamens are about 10-15.
In July-August, fruits are formed - dry, three-celled, flattened, spherical capsules up to 1 cm in diameter. One capsule contains up to 100 dark-brown small, tuberculate-angular seeds of a triangular, wedge-shaped form. One plant can produce up to 120 thousand seeds. Sometimes the vegetation of the plant continues until the autumn frosts.
Single specimens, but much more often extensive thickets of harmala are found in the southern regions of the European part of Russia, in the Caucasus, Western Siberia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Mongolia. It grows on clayey, saline soils, sands, semi-deserts and steppes, occupying desert pastures, rocky areas. Harmala is often found as a weed in cereal crops, alfalfa, in melon fields, vineyards, along roads, on sandy shores of lakes and rivers.
The plant is poisonous, but the raw material of harmala is harvested for medicinal purposes.
The harvesting of the grass (branches, leaves and flowers, but not old woody stems) begins during the period of budding and flowering, the roots are prepared in March or late autumn, the seeds - during their full ripening, that is, in autumn. The raw material is dried by air, placing the harmala under a canopy in a well-ventilated room, spreading it in a 10-centimeter layer on paper or fabric. The dried material is cut into pieces approximately 8 cm long. Packed in paper packages, the raw material of harmala is stored for no more than 2 years. Repeated collection of raw materials in the same places is possible only after 2 years. During this period, the plant resumes its growth and recovers after cutting.
Harmala seeds are suitable for harvesting when the capsules begin to open. The fruits are cut with a knife or the grass is mown with scythes, then tied into sheaves. Dry grass is threshed, seeds are separated. All stages of harvesting are done quickly, caution is exercised when cutting, drying and post-harvest processing of the grass, since nausea and headaches are possible.