Modern medicine is developing rapidly. New effective drugs and treatments are emerging. However, people still, like hundreds of years ago, turn to traditional healers and phytotherapists for help. What is the reason for this? With disbelief in the efficacy of modern medicines? Unlikely. Just the medicinal plants with which our land is so rich are, in many cases, really able to help in the fight against many formidable ailments, although they often have a lot of contraindications. Most often they are included in the complex therapy.
Today, the "hero" of our article will be the well-known mountain clover (the legume family). This is a herbaceous perennial plant from the Moth Subfamily. It has many medicinal properties, thanks to which it is successfully used by traditional healers all over the world.
Mountain clover: description
This plant is twenty to sixty centimeters high, having a rod, straight, woody root, which in the upper part can be two or three headed. Straight, solitary stems are short-ascending, stiff, simple, pressed-hairy, because of this they appear silky and grayish.
Stipules are ovoid, leathery, pointed, with distinct veins and hairs. On the lower part of the stem, the leaves are located on long (up to twenty centimeters) petioles. Above they are shorter. The length of the leaves can be up to six centimeters with a width of about three centimeters, often pointed at the ends. The lower part of the plate is pubescent, with noticeable veins. Mountain clover, the photo of which you see in the article, has small flowers, which are most often collected in inflorescences, but can be single. Calyx is two-lipped or serrated. The corolla is five-petalled, moth-shaped: the upper petal is a sail, the side petals are oars, the lower two are combined in a boat.
The flowers have ten stamens, nine of which are fused, and the tenth (top) remains free. One pestle has mountain clover. The flower formula - CH5L1 + 2 + (2) T (9) + 1P1 - is typical for beans, peas and other legumes.
Bloom
Mountain clover blooms in a very peculiar way: in each head, the tubes bloom from the bottom up, gradually. Flowering lasts no more than thirty days. Flowers open almost noon and close very early.
Mountain clover is an excellent honey plant. During flowering, bees collect nectar from the plant. Seeds ripen in August. This, like other varieties of clover, two-seeded beans.
Spread
Mountain clover (or white-headed - one of the popular names of the plant), undoubtedly - one of the most common species in its family. It is found everywhere throughout Belarus, the Caucasus, the Crimea, Western Siberia, and Central Europe; quite often it can be seen in the foothills of Central Asia. He prefers open places and dry soils. He likes to master the slopes of beams, hills, ravines. During flowering (from the first days of June to the beginning of August) it turns the landscape it populates into a solid fragrant white carpet.
What does it contain?
Mountain clover is a plant that has many beneficial properties. For medicinal purposes, only its stems, leaves and flowers are used. Belogolovka is rich in:
- essential oils;
- B vitamins;
- carotene;
- trifolin;
- Vitamin C
- flavonoids;
- coumarin.
In addition, mountain clover grass is rich in vegetable proteins, which are more than 15%, and vegetable fats - a little more than 3%. Traditional medicine has not yet used mountain clover in the manufacture of medicines, nevertheless, in traditional medicine it is very common and quite successfully used.
Mountain clover: medicinal properties and application
In folk medicine, the plant is used as an expectorant, diuretic and anti-inflammatory. On the basis of clover, an infusion or decoction is prepared, which is taken for diseases of the bronchi and lungs, various edema, pain in the gastrointestinal tract. With a hernia, a strong decoction of the grass is recommended to be drunk on an empty stomach. Inflorescences can be brewed as tea and drunk with whites in women, as well as hemorrhoids.
It is used externally in the form of warm compresses from a decoction of flowers (for burns and abscesses). With hemorrhoids, sitz baths are prescribed . The essence of clover inflorescences and flowers has been widely used in homeopathy, for the treatment of infectious mumps.
Mountain clover is especially effective in the treatment of bronchitis, cough and gastritis. An infusion for the treatment of these diseases is prepared as follows. Two tablespoons of dry chopped herbs pour 250 ml of boiling water. Close the resulting composition with a lid and set aside for about two to two and a half hours, so that it is infused in a warm place. When the specified time expires, carefully strain the product, squeeze the raw materials. Bring the composition to its original volume with boiled water.
It is necessary to take this drug in 1/3 cup three times a day. To maximize the effect of treatment, observe the norms when preparing the infusion, as well as the recommended dose.
As a forage plant, mountain clover is not widely used in animal husbandry. This is due to the fact that the stem of the plant is quite stiff and has a margin. Nevertheless, wild animals are happy to eat it.
Despite the fact that mountain clover does not cause, as a rule, side effects, an allergic reaction to some of the substances that it contains may occur, so you should not engage in treatment without consulting a doctor.
Clover: interesting facts
- Since ancient times, the shamrock of the plant has become a symbol of the Holy Trinity in Europe.
- The image of clover is often used in ornaments, architectural elements, and jewelry. This image is most popular in Gothic.
- Many European city coats of arms have a clover leaf in their image.
- Finding a plant with four leaves is considered a special success, it brings fulfillment of desires and happiness.
- In the Middle Ages, many people carried with them constantly a leaf of clover. It was believed that he protects the owner from failure.
- This plant was used for various fortune-telling.
- In many countries coins with the image of a clover leaf were minted. For example, in 1775 a clover thaler was released.
- Everyone knows the suit of playing cards. Two of them are leaf patterns . A linden leaf is peaks, and clubs are a clover leaf.
Clover and magic
Psychics and magicians consider clover leaf a magic tool. They are sure that this plant has a warm aura. Clover belongs to the four elements, but Mercury has a particularly powerful influence on it. Often it is used in witchcraft rites. It is believed that a clover leaf seen in a dream portends fame, wealth and success.