Useful and medicinal properties of wild rosemary
Family Heathers - Ericaceae
The generic name from Latin laedere is harmful, since the plant has a strong intoxicating smell, causing dizziness. Species definition - from the Latin word palus - swamp - by habitat.
Botanical Description. Evergreen, branchy shrub, with a height of 100 cm( 125 cm).Young shoots are covered with rusty hairs. Leaves alternate, oblong-lanceolate with wrapped, downward edges, glabrous from above, covered with numerous rusty hairs from below. Flowers white, five-membered, collected on the tops of shoots in corymbose inflorescences. Fruit is an elongated five-leaved box. The whole plant has a strong peculiar odorous odor.
Geographical distribution. It grows in swampy coniferous forests, on sphagnum marshes and peat bogs. It is widely distributed in the tundra, coniferous and mixed forest zones in the north and in the middle belt of the European part of the USSR and in Siberia. Large reserves of wild rosemary are found in Belarus.
A frequent companion of a rosemary is blueberry, whose fame is associated with a rosemary. A peel of blueberry fruit adsorbs the essential oil of a rosemary and then its fruits can have an intoxicating effect. When harvesting blueberries far from the Ledum, this action does not affect.
Collection and drying. Gather young shoots of the current year in the phase of fruit ripening in August - September.
They are broken off by hand, trying not to capture two-, three-year shoots that contain less essential oil. In no case can you tear out the plants from the root, as this leads to the destruction of the thickets. Repeated billets at the same site are possible only 3-5 years after complete restoration of plants.
Dry the rosemary in dryers at temperatures up to 40 ° or in the shade under a canopy, in attics, laying a layer 10-15 cm thick;daily tumbling raw materials. Drying is considered complete when the stems become brittle.
Medicinal raw materials. Ready raw materials - Herba Ledi - a mixture of leafy shoots, leaves and a small number of fruits. The smell is sharp, specific. FS 42-413-72 allows moisture not more than 14%;ash not more than 4%;last year's stems( they are grayish brown, glabrous) no more than 10%;organic impurity not more than 1%;mineral impurity not more than 0.5%.
Chemical composition. Grass contains essential oil, the amount of which in the leaves of the first year with timely collection reaches 7.5%.In young leaves( in the flowering period) and old essential oil is much less. The oil contains sesquiterpenoids of ice and palustrol, cymene, geranilacetate, etc. In addition, there are glycoside arbutin, flavonoids, tannins, vitamin C.
Action and application. Infusion of herb tea has an expectorant effect, dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure. Essential oil has bactericidal properties in relation to Staphylococcus aureus. The juice of the ledum and essential oil kill the simplest animals( protistocidal properties).An ice-cream is prescribed for coughing.
Infusion of Ledum from 5 g. Per 200 ml of water for 1 tablespoon 3 times a day is used for acute and chronic bronchitis and tuberculosis, as well as for spastic enterocolitis. Occasionally appointed with whooping cough. When treating Ledum, you must strictly follow the dosage, since the plant is poisonous, in large doses causes paralysis of the heart and respiration. Patients with bronchial asthma, we recommend to keep a small bundle of ledum in the bedroom.
In everyday life and agriculture, wild rosemary is used to fight insects. It is effective in varroatosis of bees, which, as is known, is caused by ticks.