Useful and medicinal properties of mother-and-stepmother( patchwork)
Perennial herbaceous plant up to 20 cm tall. Rhizome underground, creeping, fleshy, branchy, with a bundle of accessory roots. In the spring, from the rhizome grow one-year simple stems, white-loamy, with reduced, scaly, brownish-green leaves, carrying single flower baskets. Subsequently, radical, green petiolate, large leaves appear, round-triangular, rarely serrate along the margin, from below are white, from above dark-green glabrous. Flowers are small, yellow, marginal - reed, internal - tubular, in baskets, with a flat bare flower head and a single-row wrapper. Fruit - seed, slightly curved, with a tuft. Blooms in March-April.
Occurs on clay soils along the banks of rivers, streams, ravines, railroad embankments, road edges, slopes, fields.
Medicinal raw materials are leaves, flower baskets, in folk medicine - the whole plant. Flower baskets are collected at the beginning of flowering with the remainder of the peduncle not more than 5 cm, leaves( young leaves) are harvested after ripening and shedding of achenes, they are cut to half of the petiole. The dried plant has a bitterish taste with a mucous sensation, without a smell.
Stored raw materials in a dry room( in dry, closed boxes), since the flowers are highly hygroscopic.
Leaves and flowers contain mucus, glycoside-tussy-lyagin, inulin, deketrin, sitosterol, saponins, ascorbic acid, tannins, essential oil, gallic, malic, tartaric acids.
The plant has an anti-inflammatory effect, enhancing the secretion of bronchial glands, softening, expectorant and sweating action;externally acts as an emollient enveloping agent. In the experiment, the spasmolytic effect of the water decoction of the leaves was established. It is used for diseases of respiratory organs, catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, pneumonia, bronchial asthma, angina.
In folk medicine, in addition to these diseases, decoction of leaves of mother-and-stepmother is used for inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, kidney and bladder, upper respiratory tract, in the absence of appetite. Decoction of leaves or mashed leaves act as a relief for inflammation of the veins of the feet and inflammation of the skin. They drink a decoction with scrofula, colt, from consumption( in such cases they are used in the form of tea or broth) and with a general weakness of the organism.
Externally, mother-and-stepmother is used in the form of compresses on ugly sites, with venous inflammation, burns, wounds, chronic wounds, purulent skin diseases;with inflammation of the throat - in the form of rinses;in inflammatory bowel diseases - in the form of enemas;when toothache - draw smoke into your mouth. It should be noted that fresh leaves or juice from them give better results than poultices.
In case of hair loss and excessive dandruff with itchy scalp it is useful to wash the mother-and-stepmother's decoction to wash your head, for better efficiency it is better to brew together with the grass of coltsfoot the leaves of nettle 2 tbsp.a spoonful of both for a glass of boiling water.
Fresh juice from the leaves of mother-and-stepmother, retracted into the nostrils, eliminates the runny nose.
The therapeutic effect of mother-and-stepmother, although slow, but positive and without side complications.
Application
Decoction: 10 or 15 g per 200 ml;2-3 tbsp.spoons 3-4 times a day;or: 1 tbsp.spoon boil a glass of boiling water, insist 15 minutes, strain it warm, take 1/2 cup of reception( expectorant).
Folk mixture: fresh leaves and sugar are piled in layers in a bowl, tightly closed and buried in the ground. When everything turns into a homogeneous mass, add 0.5 kg of honey per 1 kg of weight and eat 1 tbsp.spoon 3 times a day for pulmonary tuberculosis.
Powder: 1 g of powder at reception, washed down with hot milk or honey water.