The miraculous power of medicinal plants was successfully used by our ancestors already 5-6 millennia ago. Unfortunately, the recipes of many of the ancient potions have been irretrievably lost, however, those that have survived to this day are not always used to the full extent. But they could bring relief to many people who are forced to swallow pills that have a list of side effects. For example, the medicinal properties of a scepter mullein can be used to get rid of several tens of health problems.
Description
Scepter mullein is a 2-year-old woolly-felt plant. It has an erect stem, 30 to 120 cm high, and pointed, oblong, down-flowing leaves. The main decoration of the mullein is a long (up to 30 cm) spike. It is covered with yellow flowers. Each of them has an almost regular corolla with 5 stamens. Of these, on the upper 3 are whitish-felt stamen filaments, and the lower 2 are bare. The plant has fruits in the form of a densely pubescent capsule, in which there are numerous brown, cylindrical-pyramidal seeds.
Chemical composition
The flowers of this plant contain:
- up to 2.5 percent mucus;
- saponins;
- approximately 11 percent sugar, including glucose;
- coloring matter α-crocetin C20H24O4;
- 11-12 percent of other carbohydrates;
- gum;
- traces of essential oil;
- coumarins and β-carotene.
In addition, C16H30O4 acid and flavonoids are present in the roots of mullein. This plant is also rich in vitamin C: in the leaves it is contained in an amount of 13 mg per 100 g, and in the flowers - 37 mg per 100 g.
Scepter Mullein: breeding and growing
Verbascum densiflorum propagates exclusively by seeds, which it has very small, 2 times smaller than poppy seeds. In the wild, the scepter mullein grows on upland meadows, pastures, and hillsides. Moreover, even the poorest and unsuitable soil for farming is suitable for its normal development.
As for the cultivation of this plant, it can be grown in the garden or in the summer cottage, choosing not too humid and quite bright place. In the first year, seedlings should be grown in a separate small bed.
Mullein seeds should be sown in spring or autumn to a depth of not more than 1 cm or on the surface of the soil. After shoots appear, they should be thinned out, leaving a distance of 10 cm between adjacent ones.
You can also do the following: to collect and plant young plants that have sprouted on a site or in its vicinity from self-seeding and plant on a dedicated bed.
At the end of August - at the beginning of September, the mullein, together with the soil that has stuck around its roots, needs to be transplanted to the place where the plants will winter and bloom next year. In this case, each individual copy must allocate an area of about 40 to 40 cm.
Raw material collection
For the preparation of medicines, traditional medicine experts recommend using only plants in which the stamens have orange pubescence, since specimens with purple hairs covering the stamens do not have a healing effect.
Freshly blossoming flowers should be harvested, containing the largest amount of saponins, flavonoids, glycosides, sugar, carotene, mucus, organic acids, mineral salts and essential oils. In order not to damage them, the spikelets are cut closer to noon and wait until their contents fall off by itself.
Scepter mullein flowers are laid out in a thin layer in the attic or in any other dry, dark and ventilated place, wait 2 days, and then they are kept in the oven, heated to 40 degrees Celsius, until they become fragile.
Finished raw materials must be stored in airtight containers. Moreover, it can retain its properties for up to 2 years. Damp, dried flowers are not allowed to be used, since instead of benefit, such a medicine can only do harm.
Mullein scepter, tinctures: how to make an option on alcohol
To prepare a remedy, first of all, you need 1/2 liter of alcohol or vodka, which needs to be filled with 50 g of dried flowers of this plant. Then the dishes are tightly covered with a lid and put in a dark place for 2 weeks. After this period, the liquid is filtered through cheesecloth, poured into a bottle and stored, corked, in a dark, cool place, consumed as needed. Typically, such an infusion is used externally for compresses and rubbing.
Water infusion
A scepter-like mullein can also be prepared on water. For this, 1 tbsp. l flowers of the plant are poured with 2 glasses of boiling water and insisted for 4 hours in a sealed container, placed in a warm place, and then filtered. Use this infusion 1/2 cup 2-3 times a day for half an hour before meals.
For some diseases, a more saturated remedy helps, which is obtained by brewing 20 g of mullein flowers with a scepter-shaped glass of boiling water. It can be consumed strictly following the dosage (inside 3 times a day, 1 tbsp. L. Infusion 20-30 minutes before meals).
Healing properties
The main reason for which a scepter-like mullein is grown is its use in medicine. Interestingly, this plant is actively used almost everywhere. For example, residents of Western Siberia and the Urals traditionally took alcoholic infusion from the flowers of this plant by mouth for pulmonary tuberculosis, cough, whooping cough, runny nose, inflammation of the bronchi and lungs, shortness of breath, lacrimation and other diseases, and Iranian doctors prescribed its water counterpart in heart diseases and genitourinary sphere, boils, stomatitis, diathesis and bruises. In addition, in the countries of the Arab East, scepter mullein was used to make a drink that was given to nursing mothers to drink to stimulate the production of breast milk.
Treatment
There are many options for using the infusion of flowers of such a plant as a scepter mullein. So, it is used for rubbing as an anesthetic for arthritis and rheumatism.
In addition, a decoction is prepared from the roots of this plant, which is used for baths with hemorrhoids, and in especially serious cases it is used as a lotion liquid.
Even mullein leaves, which are scalded with boiling water and applied to the place of burns, as well as purulent and difficult to heal wounds, have healing properties.
Some recipes
There are many options for preparing medicines to treat specific diseases. Introducing some of them.
In a glass of milk, 30 g of fresh mullein leaves are boiled. The resulting liquid, which has an analgesic property, is used for poultice in the anal area. It is also effective for burns. In the latter case, it should be moistened with a piece of sterile gauze, folded 4 times, and applied to burns.
Take linden flowers - 5 g, mullein - 2 g and black elderberries - 3 g. The mixture is poured 2 tbsp. boiling water, insist 2 hours in a thermos. Then filter and squeeze. It is taken orally in hot form as a diaphoretic.
Take 2 tsp. anise ordinary and flowers of scepter mullein, 3 tsp. licorice root naked, 1 tsp. violet root, 4 parts of the leaves of the coltsfoot plant and 8 tsp. Althea officinalis root . All ingredients are crushed, pour 0.5 l of boiling water and insist 20 minutes. Strained liquid is drunk in the amount of ½ tbsp. every 3 hours in order to get rid of cough and other manifestations of bronchitis.
Use in landscape design
Today in fashion, including in the field of landscape design, naturalness. For these purposes, the real find is a scepter mullein. Gardening of this plant is the most diverse. For example, it is perfect as the main decoration for the flowerbed, as its spike will beautifully rise above any composition.
Moreover, if in medicine only a scepter-like mullein with yellow flowers is used, then other species can be used to decorate the garden, the number of which reaches three hundred. By the way, it is not necessary to use wild forms, since gardeners have bred, for example, the Sautenrn Charm variety with incredibly beautiful pale pink flowers that will not go unnoticed even in the vicinity of gladioli or irises.
Having planted a mullein on your flowerbed once, you can be sure that in future years it will continue to grow in the same place, as it reproduces itself self-seeding. However, even if you had specimens with flowers of only one color, descendants of different colors may appear next year. Therefore, for those for whom the coloristic uniformity of flower beds is important, it is better to use reproduction through root cuttings. It is better to divide at the end of summer or at the beginning of autumn, after the mother plant has flowered. It is necessary to dig it out and carefully cut the root into 3-4 parts about 6 cm in size. After this, the cuttings are laid out in a bed, covered with a layer of sand of 1-2 cm and a 2-centimeter layer of soil is laid on top.
Now you know what benefits a scepter mullein can bring. In the pharmacy it can be purchased in the form of dried flowers, packaged in bags. They also sometimes sell various collections of medicinal herbs, which include mullein.