This plant is loved by gardeners and summer residents, growing it as a hedge and collecting its fruits. Representatives of traditional medicine and traditional healers especially value him for the healing properties that were successfully used in ancient Greece.
The hero of our article will be the blood-red hawthorn - a large shrub that reaches a height of more than four meters.
Spread
This variety of hawthorn is widespread in our country. The plant grows in the European part of Russia, in Siberia, Transbaikalia. In Asian countries, hawthorn settled in Kazakhstan, China, Central Asia, and Mongolia. In the central regions of our country, hawthorn blood red is grown as an ornamental plant.
Wild species are found in Moscow, Vladimir and Yaroslavl regions. He prefers to settle in the steppe zones, forests (mainly at the edges), in floodplains. This is an unpretentious, frost-resistant plant. Most actively develops on pebble, sandy, alluvial soils. It feels great on poorly cultivated soils, but subject to the absence of excessive moisture and nearby groundwater.
Description of hawthorn blood red
Due to the impressive size of this shrub, it is often mistaken for a small tree. Hawthorn belongs to the family pink, the genus of hawthorn. At a height that in some cases exceeds four meters, the diameter of the trunk is rarely more than 10 centimeters. It is covered with a crust of dark brown color.
On the branches, the bark is bloody or dark red, with a characteristic sheen. Initially, the shoots are sparsely pubescent, they become completely bare as they grow. On the branches there are straight, stiff, dark red spines reaching 5 centimeters in length, but more often their sizes do not exceed 3.5 centimeters with a thickness of not more than 2 millimeters.
On branches and young shoots, rounded whitish lentils are clearly visible. The hawthorn buds are ovoid in shape, short, blunt, about five millimeters in length, and the lateral are pointed, bare, oblong. The kidney scales are dark red; they are glossy with a characteristic light brown border.
The leaves of the plant are painted dark green on top and a light color below. They are diamond-shaped or ovoid, alternate, with blade tops. Small flowers of hawthorn blood red are collected in dense inflorescences located on bare pedicels. The length of the inflorescences is four centimeters, the width is five.
The flowers are bisexual, with a double perianth, with a diameter of not more than 15 millimeters. The shape of the sepals is triangular, solid, but two-toothed are also found. Corollas are white or slightly yellowish in color. The flowers emit a rather unpleasant odor. Abundant flowering of the plant lasts no more than one and a half weeks.
The fruits of the hawthorn blood-red spherical, rarely oval. Their diameter ranges from 0.8 to 1 centimeter. They are painted in deep red. Very rarely there are yellow-orange berries that become transparent after full ripening. Fruiting occurs in mid-autumn: from the last days of September to the first half of October. It is interesting that, being a real long-liver (the bush has a lifespan of up to 400 years), the hawthorn is blood-red, the photo of which we posted in this article, bears fruit for the first time at the age of at least 10 years.
Chemical composition
The healing properties of the plant are explained by the presence of many useful substances contained in different parts of the hawthorn. The leaves contain:
- acantholic, categalic, chlorogenic, non-metholic, ursolic and caffeic acids;
- quercetin;
- hyperoside;
- vitexin;
- ramnoside vitexin;
- essential oil.
The flowers of the plant contain:
- tannins;
- flavonoids;
- essential oil;
- acetylcholine;
- chlorogenic and caffeic acids;
- quercetin;
- hyperoside.
In the seeds found:
- fatty oil;
- amygdalin;
- hyperoside.
In the cortex:
In fruits:
- triterpenoids:
- polysaccharides;
- acetylcholine;
- choline;
- tannins;
- carotenoids;
- palmitic, stearic acid.
The fruits of hawthorn revealed:
- fatty oil;
- Sahara;
- oleanolic, ursolic, caffeic, chlorogenic acids;
- phytosterols;
- tannins;
- glycosides;
- saponins;
- hyperoside.
Healing properties
Medicines made on the basis of blood-red hawthorn increase the supply of oxygen to the brain and heart, expand the vessels of the brain, calm, normalize metabolism, and stabilize the heart rhythm. They also improve the general condition of the patient, establish sleep, accelerate recovery after serious illness, lower cholesterol.
The use of blood red hawthorn for medicinal purposes
Hawthorn preparations are indicated for the following diseases:
- heart failure in various forms;
- tachycardia;
- myocardial infarction;
- the first stages of hypertension;
- insomnia;
- arrhythmia;
- nervous disorders.
One spoon (teaspoon) of juice squeezed from fresh berries of hawthorn will help get rid of heart pain. Due to its healing properties, hawthorn blood-red in the initial stages of hypertension is able to improve the patient's condition. After a twenty-day course of treatment, the walls of the blood vessels relax, blood pressure decreases. You need to know that an advanced disease should be treated with stronger drugs.
The healing properties of the blood-red hawthorn reduce the number of attacks in coronary heart disease, normalize fat metabolism. Stress or nervous tension helps relieve the use of hawthorn with valerian-based drugs. Quite often, doctors recommend using tincture of hawthorn for heart attack, atherosclerosis, and heart failure. A therapeutic effect can be achieved only by strictly observing the dosage.
The finished tincture, purchased at the pharmacy, is taken three times a day, before meals (half an hour). It is necessary to mix 30 drops of tincture with 30 ml of water.
Hawthorn in folk medicine: recipes
Crushed hawthorn fruits insist for fifteen days on 70% alcohol in a ratio of 1:10 in a dark place, shaking the composition every day. A transparent yellow-red liquid with a sweet taste is taken for heart and nervous diseases.
Effectively helps with rheumatism. To obtain it, you need to fill in two parts of flowers with ten parts of alcohol and remove them in a dark place for a week. After this, the affected joints are rubbed with this tincture in the morning and evening. With severe pain, you can do compresses with this tincture.
It should be said that the extract of hawthorn fruit is the main component of the complex preparation “Cardiovalen”, which is recommended for the treatment of vascular and heart diseases, and is also one of the components in many collections for the treatment of renal pathologies.
Infusions
Brew 50 g of flowers with 600 ml of boiling water and leave for half an hour. After this, strain the composition and take 100 ml 3 times a day with heart palpitations, hypertension, dizziness.
In a thermos, brew 25 g of fruit with 200 ml of boiling water. After four hours, strain the composition. It is necessary to take it 50 ml three times a day before meals with general weakness, insomnia, and the initial stages of hypertension.
Grind and mix well the flowers of hawthorn and grass cinnamon in equal proportions. 25 g of this herbal mixture pour 200 ml of boiling water and leave for two hours. After that, it can be filtered and taken 50 ml three times with inflammation of the bladder, kidneys, hypertension, pain in the heart.
Tea
Flowers and fruits of hawthorn, leaves and fruits of black currant, fruits and leaves of wild strawberries, rose hips in equal proportions, carefully chop and mix. Brew like regular tea - one spoon (teaspoon) per glass of boiling water. Drink a medicinal drink three times a day in a glass with atherosclerosis, dizziness, insomnia, hyperthyroidism, heart neurosis.
Contraindications
Everyone knows that medicinal herbs have contraindications for use, which cannot be ignored before starting treatment. Hawthorn in this sense is no exception.
Preparations based on it or those containing this plant are not recommended for children under three years of age, as well as for pregnant women and during lactation.
Excessive consumption of hawthorn berries (more than 200 pieces) can dramatically reduce blood pressure. This condition is manifested by dizziness, drowsiness, weakness, nausea and vomiting.
Hawthorn preparations should be taken before meals (30 minutes). Otherwise, you can feel a sharp pain in the stomach. Before starting treatment with preparations of hawthorn in combination with other medicines that have a similar area of influence, you should consult a specialist.
Where else is hawthorn applied?
Hawthorn has decorative properties, and therefore it is used for landscaping squares and parks, when creating hedges. Widespread hawthorn and in protective afforestation. In addition, this plant has great soil protection value in mountain conditions. Sometimes gardeners use hawthorn in fruit growing as a stock for dwarf pears and apple trees.
Hawthorn is a beautiful honey plant. From the bark of the plant, you can make a decoction, which will become a natural dye for the fabric. He will give her a rich red color.
Hawthorn wood is of great value. It is viscous, quite durable, has a beautiful texture. Various carpentry, souvenirs, beautiful art dishes, toys are made from it. In addition, it has found application in the manufacture of handles for percussion instruments and shovels.
The fruits of hawthorn are consumed in fresh, frozen, dried, processed form. Natural or mixed with other juices are prepared from them. They go well with acidic varieties of apples, red or black currants, cranberries. Hawthorn fruits are used in cooking: jam, juices, jam, jelly and compotes are prepared from them.