Black elderberry is a deciduous shrub belonging to the Adoksy family. In the people it is called elderberry color, buzovnik, empty land, sambuca, squeaker. It is believed that the Latin name of the plant "sambucus" is directly related to sambucus - an oriental musical instrument made from its wood. The Greeks and Romans grew it for medical use, in addition, they considered it a sacred plant that protects their home. In this article, we will consider what elderberry is, learn about its beneficial properties, and also figure out how to use it.
In the Middle Ages, it was already used for medicinal purposes, in addition, as a dye for tissues and hair. The Slavs believed that it should not be brought into the house or burned, that lightning would not strike it. At the same time, Germany had its own opinion about what elderberry is. They believed that this plant is useful for witches. Everyone who cuts it down will fall into their power. Due to this, it was believed that the person who grows this plant near the house invokes various troubles on his head.
Description
So what is elderberry? This is a low tree or shrub with a trunk, the diameter of which reaches 30 cm, with a fissured, ash-brown bark, with a rounded crown, with a huge number of yellow lentils located on young branches. The plant lives about 60 years.
Elderberry has branched stems, with a white porous soft core and a thin woody shell. Its leaves are large, unpaired, opposite, dark green, up to 30 cm long, consist of several oblong-ovate pointed leaves. On top they are a dull green hue, grayish green below. Stipules appear in the leaves in spring, then they fall off.
Elderberry flowers are yellowish-white, fragrant, small, five-petalled, with a spontaneously spiky nimbus. They are collected in flat apical large corymbose panicles, up to 20 cm in diameter. Sedentary marginal flowers, all the others have pedicels.
Elderberry grows in Madeira and the Azores, in Tunisia and Algeria, North America, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic States, Belarus, Russia, New Zealand.
Billet
So, we learned what an elderberry is, now we will find out how it is prepared for subsequent use. Flowers, fruits, young branches, leaves, roots and bark of a plant are used by traditional medicine. The blossoming flowers of the plant are cut in dry weather in May with whole inflorescences (before sprinkling, during the flowering period), they are laid loosely in baskets, as crumpled inflorescences darken when dried. At the same time, the flowers turn brown in a plastic bag, acquiring a very unpleasant odor. This raw material is unsuitable for drying. Then the inflorescences are folded up by twigs on a layer of paper or fabric or hung over paper or fabric (where the flowers will fall) in a ventilated place, in the shade.
Black elderberry berries in the harvest are cut with whole brushes, ripened in August. Unripe fruits are poisonous, while ripe ones are edible and quite safe, although they can be consumed only after heat treatment or drying. Dried by hanging in ventilated places.
For the preparation of juices or jam, elderberry black, the healing properties of which are described in this article, breaks off right before processing. They wash it with whole inflorescences, otherwise the juice flows easily. Torn berries are not stored unworked for more than two days, because they quickly mold. It is advisable to make juice in a juicer, while the seeds remain intact. After receiving it, the residues must be wiped through a sieve, thus removing numerous toxic bones.
Bark is removed from two-year branches in the spring before sap flow begins. It is thoroughly cleaned of glands, separated from the core, and then dried in ovens, dryers. Store no more than 3 years. In the spring, they collect leaves. The roots of the plant are harvested in November, dried, and then ground into powder.
Composition
The plant in the flowers contains essential semi-solid oil, glycosides, flavonoids (quercetin, rutin), choline; konyin and alkaloids sanguinarine; ethyl isobutyl, carotene, organic acids: ascorbic, acetic, coffee, valerianic, malic, chlorogenic; paraffin-like, tannins and mucous substances, amines (isobutylamine, ethylamine, isoamylamine), sugars, pentosans, mineral salts, resins.
Black elderberry contains ascorbic and malic acids, rutin, carotene, B vitamins, chrysantemin, sambucin, sugars (glucose, fructose), tannins, amino acids, organic acids, resins, pectins, anthocyanins, traces of essential oils. In unripe fruits and leaves, there is sambunigrin glycoside, which breaks down into benzaldehyde, glucose and hydrocyanic acid.
Black elderberry , the medicinal properties of which have been actively used in folk medicine for many years, contains sambunigrin and fatty oil in the seeds. In the leaves are hexene and glycolaldehydes, traces of alkaloids, tannins, carotene, ascorbic acid. In the roots are bitter and tannins, as well as saponins. In dry raw materials - resins, sambunigrin, essential oil. In the cortex - choline, betulin, triterpene compounds, essential oil, methyl ether, phytosterols, ceryl alcohol, organic acids, sugars, pectin and tannins.
Use in medicine
Elderberry black healing properties are very broad. It is used as a general strengthening, analgesic, antipyretic, antiviral, antifungal, expectorant, anthelmintic, sedative, astringent; with ascites; for better metabolism; with edema, female diseases, menopause; diabetes mellitus; headache; hepatitis; stomach ulcer; arthritis, polyarthritis; malaria bronchitis; skin pigmentation disorders; skin diseases; blepharitis, conjunctivitis; hydrophobia; depressions.
Cooking use
Elderberry is used to make jam, marmalade, compotes, jelly. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, syrup is prepared from the flowers of the plant. Periodically, the juice or young inflorescences of its fruits are added to the grape must to improve the aroma and taste of the drink. From ripe berries receive harmless dyes, purple and red, which are used in the food industry.
Use in other areas
Elderberry is a decorative plant, it is often grown in parks and gardens. It is noteworthy for ornamental foliage, elegant fruits, lace inflorescences. Plant wood is used in turning; branches are suitable for protecting granaries from weevil, they are also used as an insecticide for bedbugs, gooseberry moths, blackcurrant mites.
In addition, this plant discourages rats and mice, therefore, elderberries are planted around cellars, barns, sheds. Flowers are used in veterinary medicine for rheumatism and colds in horses and cattle. The juice of its fruits dyes wool and silk in different tones. Copper utensils are also cleaned with the fruits of this plant.
Infusion of flowers
Elderberry black healing properties is very diverse. A medicinal infusion is prepared from it. To do this, 1 tablespoon of the flowers of the plant is poured into a glass of hot water. Insist the remedy for 20 minutes in a closed pan, filter, drink at night as hot as a diaphoretic, astringent, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, choleretic, diuretic; with various colds (runny nose, cough, laryngitis, tonsillitis) and flu, as well as diseases of the bladder, kidneys, edema, gout, rheumatism and neuralgia, skin rashes, hemorrhoids.
Fruit infusion
We take dried elderberry (10 g), fill them with a glass of chilled boiled water for 2 hours. Drink once a day in a glass.
Flask of Bark
6 g of bark are infused in 500 ml of boiling water for 5 hours in a thermos. Use 5 times a day for edema, diseases of the bladder, kidneys, diabetes mellitus, dropsy.
Decoction of flowers: elderberry flowers
A spoonful of dried flowers is poured into a glass of water, heated in a steam bath under a lid for 15 minutes, filtered. The volume is brought to the initial boiled water. Use warm before meals, a third of a glass twice a day for joint rheumatism, gout and arthritis, bronchial asthma and colds. The resulting product must be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. It is used as lotions or poultices for burns, diaper rash, boils, as well as rinses for inflammation of the mouth and throat.
Decoction of leaves
A spoonful of leaves must be poured with a glass of boiling water, boil for 5 minutes and insist until the product has completely cooled. Use 1 spoon three times a day for diabetes, rheumatism, ascites, gout, edema, etc.
Decoction of fruits
1 spoon of fruit is boiled for 5 minutes in a glass of water in a steam bath. They insist for another 5 minutes, after which they are filtered. They drink as a diuretic, anesthetic, as well as regulating metabolism.
Decoction of the roots
A spoonful of crushed roots must be poured with a glass of water and heated for half an hour in a steam bath. After cooling, you need to strain and add to the initial volume of boiled warm water. Drink with diabetes.
Elderberry juice
You will need a ripe black elderberry. The use of juice from it is indicated for cancer. Berries are laid in layers in a three-liter jar, alternating them with the same thickness of sugar. Fill the jar to the top. Means to insist for a month. Stand out juice to drink three times a day for 1 spoon. During the treatment period, drink 150 ml of distilled water before meals.
Syrup
On an empty stomach drink a glass of cold boiled water. Then drink a dessert spoon of the finished syrup. Such a tool will help with mastopathy. Syrup to use twice a day at the same time. Drink until it ends in syrup in a jar. The treatment should be carried out for a month and a half, then repeated after another month. Three such courses are required per year.
Juice on alcohol
The collected ripe medicinal elderberry is wrung out. It should turn out 250 ml of finished juice. It is mixed with the same amount of alcohol. Use on growing three times a day from 1 to 40 drops, then vice versa. Means need to be washed down with milk. If mastopathy has not passed, after 3 weeks repeat the course of treatment.
Sweatshop
Mix 2 tablespoons of elderberry flowers, sirloin linden flowers and high mullein. Pour the mixture (2 tablespoons from the received) with a glass of hot water, insist for half an hour, and then strain. Add water to a glass. Drink the drug in 3 divided doses hot.
Bath from the infusion of leaves and roots
Pour 30 g of a mixture of ground elderberry roots and dry leaves with a liter of boiling water, insist 2 hours. Filter the infusion, then pour it into a bath filled with water. Treatment includes 10 daily treatments. Take a bath before bedtime for 15 minutes.
Poultice of leaves
In milk, boil 2 tablespoons of plant leaves, after which they are wrapped in gauze. Applied externally for burns, boils, hemorrhoids and diaper rash.
Poultices made of chamomile and elderberry flowers
You will need elderberry (recipes from it are given in this article) and chamomile. Stir these herbs in equal parts. Wrap them in gauze, then pour over with hot water and with rheumatism and gout do warm wrapping.
When treating blackheads that occur on the face, squeezed fresh fruits of this plant are applied on the skin with a thin layer.
Lotion of flowers
It will take a handful of elderberry flowers. They must be poured with boiling water (half a liter), insist 20 minutes. The resulting product must be filtered and stored in the refrigerator. Apply every day to the face in the morning and evening. This lotion perfectly rejuvenates and tones the skin.
Contraindications
Black elderberry, the properties of which were described in detail in the article above, is a poisonous plant. All its parts are poisonous, except for the shell and pulp of flowers and ripe berries. When treating, it must be remembered that the fruits of the plant in large quantities are forbidden. Doses of drugs cannot be increased, since this can lead to various side effects: diarrhea, vomiting, frequent urination, etc. The bark and its roots can cause inflammation of the gastrointestinal mucosa in large doses.
You can not take black elderberry preparations for diabetes insipidus, enterocolitis (ulcerative colitis), in addition, for chronic inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. Its preparations are also contraindicated in children under 12 years old, during pregnancy, individual intolerance, and feeding.
It is not always possible to distinguish black elder from red (more poisonous). Therefore, if you are not completely sure that you are eating the black look, do not use berries to prevent severe poisoning.