Fragrant woodruff medicinal properties and contraindications. Woodruff combines a number of useful elements. Woodruff Herb Infusion

Woodruff odorous (Asperula graveolens).

Other names: fragrant woodruff, fragrant hornet, May grass.

Description. perennial herbaceous plant Family Rubiaceae. It has a thin, long, creeping rhizome. The stems are erect, tetrahedral, bare, unbranched, 10-40 cm high. Only at the base of the leaves are hairs in the form of a ring.
The leaves are sessile with spines located along the edges, directed forward. The lower leaves are lobed, collected in a ring of 4-6 pieces. The upper leaves are lanceolate, pointed, collected in a ring of 8 pieces.
The flowers are small, regular, collected at the top of the stems with three semi-umbels, forming a paniculate inflorescence. Corolla white, four-parted to the middle. Blooms in June - July. Fruit ripening in August - September. The fruit is dry, covered with hook-shaped bristles, splitting into two nuts.
Fragrant woodruff grows in broad-leaved, mixed forests, on riverine sands, in the forest-steppe zone. Distributed in the European part of Russia, Ukraine, the mountainous part of the Crimea, in Altai, the Far East, in the Sayans, Central Asia. It occurs in the basins of the Don, Volga, Dnieper.
Woodruff odorous propagates by seeds, division of rhizomes, cuttings.

Collection and preparation of raw materials. For medicinal purposes, the herb of fragrant woodruff is used and harvested. Harvesting is carried out at the beginning of flowering plants. The collected grass is quickly dried on outdoors in the shade or in a room with normal ventilation, spread out thin layer on paper or fabric. Dried raw materials are stored in closed banks in a dry room. Shelf life 1 year.
Plant composition. Fragrant woodruff herb contains flavonoids, asperuloside lactone, coumarins, acids (tartaric, oxalic, malic, catechinic, silicic), traces essential oil, fatty oil, ascorbic acid, tannins and bitter substances.

Useful properties, application, treatment.
Woodruff odorous has a calming, diuretic, choleretic, diaphoretic, mild laxative, emollient, antiseptic, wound healing, analgesic properties. Also, woodruff preparations have active action on metabolism, slow down the frequency of contractions of the heart muscle, regulate the work of the heart.
Infusion of woodruff herb is taken internally for palpitations, neurasthenia, angioedema, insomnia, neuralgia, bouts of hysteria, jaundice, gallstone and nephrolithiasis. Another infusion of this plant will be useful for acute inflammation intestines, constipation, diarrhea, dropsy and edema, with dysmenorrhea. When coughing, woodruff is used as an emollient.
Outwardly, an infusion of woodruff grass is used in the form of washings, compresses for the treatment of wounds, ulcers, abscesses, boils, pustular rashes.
Fragrant woodruff can be used as a single plant, or as part of a collection with other plants.
For the treatment of palpitations, hysteria, insomnia, fragrant woodruff can be used together with fragrant violet and common motherwort.
During treatment inflammatory diseases Gastrointestinal tract (gastritis, enteritis, colitis, enterocolitis), fragrant woodruff is used together with common oregano, lemon balm, wild strawberries (dried berries).
With a tendency to skin diseases fragrant woodruff can be used together with a series of tripartite, linden flowers, leaves walnut.

Dosage forms and doses.
Infusion of woodruff odorous. 2 tablespoons of dry chopped herbs are poured with 2 cups of boiling water, insisted for 1 hour, filtered. Take half a glass 4 p. in a day.
This infusion is also used for external use in the form of washings and compresses.

Infusion for the treatment of palpitations, hysteria, insomnia.
1 part dry chopped woodruff herb;
1 part dry chopped herb fragrant violets;
1 part dry chopped motherwort herb.
2 dessert spoons of this mixture are poured into 300 ml of boiling water, insisted for 40 minutes, filtered. Take 1/3 cup 4 r. in a day.

Infusion for the treatment of inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. To prepare the infusion take:
2 parts of dry chopped woodruff grass;
2 parts of dry crushed leaves of lemon balm;
1 part dry chopped herb oregano;
3 parts dried fruits wild strawberries.
1 tablespoon of this mixture is poured into 300 ml of boiling water, insisted for 20 minutes, filtered. Take half a glass (100 ml) 3 r. in a day.

With a tendency to skin diseases. To prepare the infusion take:
3 parts of dry chopped woodruff grass;
3 parts of dry chopped grass of a series of tripartite;
4 parts dry crushed linden flowers;
1 part dry crushed walnut leaves.
1 dessert spoon of this mixture is poured into 200 ml of boiling water, insisted for 20 minutes, filtered. Take 1-2 cups of infusion per day.

Warning. Woodruff odorous is a poisonous plant, so the dosage must be observed!

Fragrant woodruff is a herbaceous perennial plant with a stem of four facets. It has a fragrant nice smell. This plant has a number of useful medicinal properties. In various countries, woodruff is considered a medicinal plant. These countries include Austria, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Hungary. This plant is also widely used in food production. Other names for fragrant woodruff: fragrant madder, jasmine, fragrant, fragrant aster, whey grass, fragrant tar, fragrant bedstraw.

Description of woodruff

Bedstraw is a herbaceous perennial belonging to the madder family. The grass has a branched and thin rhizome, as well as bare and erect stems with four faces. Its stems are about 10-40 centimeters high, without branching. Its leaves are arranged in whorls. The lower leaves are broadly lanceolate (6 in a whorl), sharp and small, and the upper leaves are lanceolate, arranged approximately 8 in a whorl. Woodruff fruits are dry and have a spherical shape, not exceeding 3 mm in diameter. They are covered with hook-shaped bristles. The flowers of the plant are small, usually white, and also of the correct tubular-bell-shaped shape, and in addition, they are collected in a paniculate corymbose inflorescence. Flowering of fragrant bedstraw occurs in May and June, begins to bear fruit in July. dry plant gives off a subtle coumarin aroma.

woodruff habitats

The fragrant woodruff can usually be seen in the forest-steppe, as well as the forest zone, located in the CIS countries, in the Mediterranean, the European part of Russia (not in the north), in the south of the Far East and Siberia, in the Caucasus. It grows in broad-leaved and mixed, as well as in damp and dark coniferous forests. As a rule, woodruff grows on moist soil with humus, along river banks in forests and ravines. A lot of it grows in beech forests, as well as in mountainous areas to the mid-mountain zone.

Collection and preparation

The plant is harvested and harvested from the beginning of May to the end of June. For harvesting it, the aerial part is used, which is cut off during the flowering of woodruff. It is cut close to the ground, and after that the grass is collected in a bunch and dried thoroughly in a dark and dry room. Storage is made in well closed capacities no more than 1 year.

Description of the composition of odorous and fragrant woodruff

In its composition, the bedstraw contains many useful and effective substances: coumarins, various tannins, flavonoids, various acids(wine, apple, catechin, oxalic, silicon), vitamin P and C.

The root of the plant contains anthraquinones (alizarin, rubiadin, purpurin) and coumarins. The leaves contain chlorogenic and phenolcarboxylic acids, various tannins, flavonoids, iridoids (deacetylasperuloside), vitamin C and carotenoids.

Fragrant woodruff: medicinal properties and contraindications

The plant has medicinal properties and contraindications. Fragrant woodruff is not a plant used in traditional medicine. It is used when various diseases skin as a wound healing and astringent due to the content of tannins in it. It has an anti-inflammatory effect active substance lactone asperuloside. It also performs an antispasmodic function, affecting smooth muscle. And coumarins, which are part of the plant, treat nervous diseases and stop pain syndrome. A variety of woodruff extracts and tinctures dilate capillaries and increase blood circulation without changing blood viscosity.

The period of pregnancy and lactation can serve as a contraindication to the use. The plant is poisonous, so it is dangerous for the occurrence allergic reaction on it, and in addition, it can cause poisoning with its accompanying symptoms: headache, vomiting and dizziness.

The use of woodruff

Funds from fragrant woodruff soothe nervous system, stimulate sweating and urine excretion, improve metabolic processes, give an analgesic effect, heal wounds, eliminate seizures and tantrums, improve sleep and heart function. Decoctions and infusions are used in alternative medicine as a diuretic for inflammation genitourinary system, nephrolithiasis, dropsy and cystopyelitis. Infusions from woodruff root are commonly taken in the treatment of seizures, as well as to tone the whole body. For prostatitis, woodruff is used mixed with other herbs.

In some countries, woodruff is used as a means to improve blood circulation, and in addition, a slight staining of white skin.

This plant serves as food for rural animals. Dried woodruff flowers are excellent remedy against the moth.

The use of woodruff in food production

Woodruff odorous has a very important nutritional value. Since it contains bitterness, coumarin and tannic components, it is used in order to give an original taste. culinary specialties. To find out what kind of fragrant woodruff tastes like, you should try dishes containing it in their composition. It is customary to add the leaves of the plant to fruit and vegetable salads, dried fruit compotes and a variety of sweet soups. It is also used to add flavor to various drinks: lemonades, teas, wines, liquor.

Fragrant woodruff and chocolate are also very related, as the plant is added to chocolate to give it an interesting and original taste. In France, woodruff is used as an indispensable ingredient for champagne, in Switzerland - Benedictine, and in America - an unsurpassed wine punch, which consists of a mixture of cognac, wine and Benedictine. A coffee substitute is made from the roasted seeds of the plant. From the flowers, stems and seeds of the plant, a milk-clotting enzyme is made. Woodruff grass is also used in the fragrance of clothes and tobacco.

In Germany, woodruff herb is very popular as an ingredient in a drink called Maibowle. The plant is infused in wine for some time, sugar, cognac and orange peel are also added to it.

In the north of Europe, it is customary to flavor several types of smoked products with woodruff.

Dosage

There are several recipes for preparing an infusion of woodruff herb.

1. You need to take one small spoonful of crushed leaves of the plant and pour it with one glass of hot boiled water, after let the mixture brew for 3 hours, and then carefully strain. It is recommended to drink the infusion in half a glass 4 times a day.

2. In one glass of cold clean water you need to fill in 2 small spoons of finely chopped woodruff, let it brew for 4 hours, then strain. The composition should be taken 2 times a day, half a glass before meals or a whole glass before bedtime.

The healing properties of woodruff have been actively used in alternative medicine since the middle of the sixteenth century. Notes by a Benedictine monk, which said that the stems of the plant, infused with Rhine wine, improve general state and strengthen immune system, served as the basis for the further use of the plant for therapy various ailments.

Today fragrant woodruff is widely used not only in informal medicine. It is used in cooking and cosmetics. Moreover, it is also a honey plant and food for agricultural animals.

Woodruff odorous (lat. Aspérula graveólens) is a herbaceous perennial belonging to the genus Woodruff and the family Rubiaceae, and reaching a height of thirty centimeters. It is endowed with an upright unbranched tetrahedral stem, opposite spatulate pointed whole-extreme leaves hard at the edges, small white inflorescences. Flowering occurs at the end of the spring period.

Grass Asperula (the scientific name of woodruff) grows in Russia, the Far East, Siberia, mainly in dark, humid, mixed forests, less often in spruce forests. Prefers to grow in moist, humus-rich soils. In the photo you can see different kinds representatives of this numerous genus.

Field

How and when is it necessary to collect and harvest plant materials?

For the manufacture of funds, mainly the herb of the plant is used. The rhizomes of woodruff fragrant are rarely used. Grass is harvested during the flowering period. Next, the grass is dried outside in the shade. The prepared raw materials are poured into paper bags and stored in a dry room. The shelf life of blanks is one year.

The composition and medicinal properties of woodruff

The grass of this medicinal plant endowed large quantity useful substances: oxalic and catechin acids, vitamin P, essential oils, ascorbic acid, tannins, bitterness, flavonoids and coumarins.

Woodruff medicines have:

• astringents;
• antispasmodic;
• sweatshops;
• sedatives;
• antiseptic;
• restorative;
• immunostimulatory properties.

Woodruff remedies will help in minimizing inflammation; elimination of spasms and pains; normalization of the male reproductive system; expansion of capillaries and increased dynamics of blood circulation; strengthening immunity; normalization of metabolism.

Fragrant woodruff has wide application in informal medicine. Medicines based on it are recommended for the treatment of CNS pathologies, insomnia, tachycardia, urolithiasis, ailments of the genitourinary system, prostatitis, psoriasis, rashes, eczema, furunculosis, abscesses, burns and tumors.

Recipes for effective drugs

There are many time tested effective recipes drugs for the treatment of various ailments. They will certainly help in the cure, but they can be used only after consulting your doctor. In no case do not self-medicate, this can provoke a worsening of the condition.

In addition, try to strictly observe the dosages indicated in the recipes. Nausea, vomiting, dizziness, malaise - all these manifestations indicate an overdose of the drug. In this case, you must refrain from taking the composition and seek the help of a qualified specialist.

1. : application healing tincture. This tool helps to improve the work of the CCC. Pour a tablespoon of dried woodruff grass into a jar. Pour the raw material with half a liter of vodka. Infuse the composition in a cool place for a week. You need to take a spoonful of the composition after each meal. The duration of the therapeutic course is a week. This is followed by a week and a half break and a repetition of the course.

2. Decoction of woodruff for normalization metabolic processes. The same composition is recommended for use by people suffering from diabetes. Pour 15 grams of plant grass into a saucepan, pour boiling water. Boil the composition, and then boil it over low heat for ten minutes. It is advised to drink 100 ml of the drug four times a day. The duration of therapy is two to three weeks.

3. Psoriasis: infusion treatment. Combine woodruff grass with walnut leaves in equal proportions. Brew raw materials with boiled water - two glasses. Set aside the composition for four hours in heat. Soak the bandages in the infused composition and apply to the affected areas of the dermis. For amplification therapeutic effect it is advised to use the same infusion - ½ cup twice a day.

4. : application of a healing drink. Brew woodruff grass, about 20 grams of boiling water - ½ liter. Strain after five hours. Take 50 ml of medicine four times a day. The duration of the course is a week.

5. Tumors of the mammary gland: the use of compresses. To prepare this remedy, you will need fresh grass woodruff. Grind it to a mushy consistency. Put the mass on a gauze napkin and attach to the mammary gland. Apply cellophane on top and secure with a bandage. The duration of the procedure is two hours. The course of treatment with compresses is one and a half weeks.

6. Dysmenorrhea: treatment with infusion. Pour two teaspoons of herbs cold water- 300 ml. The composition should be infused throughout the day in a cool place. Filter the product, divide it into several equal portions and consume throughout the day. The duration of therapy is five days. Treatment is recommended at the beginning of the cycle.

7. Epilepsy: application healing drink. Brew a spoonful of dried woodruff herb with boiling water - 200 ml. Strain after two hours. It is necessary to take a spoonful of strained drug four times a day. The tool helps to reduce the frequency of seizures.

Contraindications

It is important to know that woodruff odorous has a toxic effect, it poisonous plant. That is why it is necessary to strictly observe the dosage. It is not recommended for pregnant and lactating women. It is impossible to treat children with means from it. The use of the plant is also contraindicated for people with individual intolerance.

Often the plants of our natural flora do not find their place in home gardens. Here is a fragrant bedstraw (Galium odoratum), he is fragrant woodruff (Asperula odorata)- a frequenter of English and Dutch gardens - we meet only in botanical collections. The plant, of course, is modest in appearance, but if you need to plant something in a large array in the shade, you can’t find a better ground cover. Its flowers, although small, thanks to white color clearly visible against the background of a green carpet, even in a deaf shade. And flowering is very long - in May-June. Add to this pleasant aroma greenery and flowers, which designated its specific name - fragrant.

The inspiration of the great Strauss

Woodruff was called in Ancient Russia“grass of sixteen names” (the most famous of them are the fragrant hornet, fragrant bedweed, heart friend, liver grass, May color, May grass, tea grass, forest tea, marenka zapashna (Ukrainian)). Moreover, fragrant woodruff is considered her seventeenth name.

First written botanical characteristic fragrant woodruff in Russia became known simultaneously with the first annalistic mention of Novgorod, in the period around 854-859, the time of the beginning of the Russian princely dynasty and the emergence of Russia. The description was made by the Russian sorcerers, who at that distant time already knew this plant and highly appreciated its medicinal properties, calling it "starry herb". Botanists will appreciate fragrant woodruff only after eight centuries

Now this plant, perhaps, is more known to musicians than gardeners. There is a beautiful quadrille by Johann Strauss-son, which is called “Fragrant Woodruff”. On its basis, an operetta was staged, which was a great success during the composer's lifetime. The quadrille "Scented Woodruff" was orchestrated in all three acts of the operetta of the same name. At the first concert performance of the overture to Fragrant Woodruff in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musical Association in December 1895, the author himself conducted. Vienna was wildly delighted, the newspapers noted that the brilliant overture was greeted by the musical community and the public with "hurricane ovations", and critics called the quadrille "not just commendable, but simply magnificent."

Why the great composer gave such a name to his musical masterpiece, one can only guess. But it is known for sure that Strauss was very fond of flavored drinks on the basis of woodruff fragrant, with which he preferred to treat his heart. In those years, in Alsace, the fragrant "May wine" was made from woodruff, which, of course, was well known in Austria.

From music to botany

(Galium odoratum)- the most decorative representative of the genus bedstraw of the madder family (Rubiaceae).

Latin name Galium comes from Greek gala- milk, and given to the plant for the property of causing rapid clotting of milk when the plant is eaten by cows. And the Russian bedstraw - for its great resemblance to its distant relative in the family, madder (Rubia), see Madder.

It is a wild plant predominantly in the temperate zone. northern hemisphere(Europe, Mediterranean, Caucasus, Western and Eastern Siberia, Eastern Kazakhstan, Asia Minor, Iran, Far East, China, Japan). Successfully naturalized in North America.

Fragrant bedstraw is a perennial herbaceous plant with thin and long rhizomes, from which 2-3 tetrahedral bare stems 10-40 cm high depart. The leaves are small, dark green, oblong or broadly lanceolate, pointed, collected in whorls of 6-10, with one protruding midrib, over entire surface or only along margin and vein, set with straight clinging setae directed toward apex. The leaves are fragrant, winter green. Last year's stems with leaves die off and are replaced in spring. The flowers are white, small, funnel-shaped, about 6 mm in diameter, with a limb of 4 pointed lobes, also fragrant.

cultivation

When growing bedstraw, you must adhere to natural conditions growth. Like any other plant growing under the forest canopy, fragrant bedstraw prefers shade or partial shade. In the sun, the vegetation cover thins out - the fragrant bedstraw has winter-green leaves, which “burn” in the sun with a lack of moisture, and the plant eventually dies.

Bedstraw loves fairly moist loose soil, its roots spread in the uppermost surface layer of the soil. However, by competing for moisture with the woody plants under which it usually grows, it can withstand short periods of drought.

Loose loams from slightly acidic to slightly alkaline (pH 5.6-7.5) are most acceptable for the plant. Top dressing under the plant is not made, only mulched with compost. Weed very carefully, trying not to damage the surface rhizomes.

reproduction

The plant is propagated mainly vegetatively - by dividing the rhizomes in spring or late August. It grows well in width spontaneously, mastering new shady territories.

Reproduction by seeds in the Moscow region is difficult because very few seeds are tied. They ripen at the end of August and require autumn sowing, since during storage they lose their germination capacity after a year. Crops must be covered with leaf litter in autumn. Young seedlings that sprouted in the spring do not bloom in the first year. In autumn they are again covered with a dry leaf, as a bedstraw usually winters in nature in the grassy cover of the forest. Flowering occurs in a year and adult plants become completely winter-hardy.

In the case of spring sowing, seeds require cold stratification at 0 + 2 ° C. Imported seeds are sometimes found on sale, while the plant appears under an outdated name asperula fragrant, or fragrant woodruff (Asperula odorata).

Usage

Like any plant of natural flora, the bedstraw is most appropriate in natural garden style gardens. It looks great in forest areas, planted in large curtains. It looks good in shady gardens in combination with lungwort, yanotka, brunners, corydalis, anemones, liverworts, spring-flowering small-bulbous plants - blueberries, chionodoxes.

It can be planted in mixborders in partial shade - early and long flowering allows them to knock out hosts that unfold their leaves late, already in the midst of flowering of the bedstraw.

Choosing damp places in nature, fragrant bedstraw is not uncommon along forest rivers and streams. In the garden, similarly, they can decorate the banks of shady ponds.

The plant has long been used as a medicinal plant. The first written mention of the fragrant woodruff dates back to 854. It has been widely used in traditional medicine from the middle of the 16th century. Dried grass has a pleasant smell of coumarin, which contains 0.83%. In addition to coumarin, high content others biologically active substances, which determine the hypotensive, antimicrobial, sedative effect of the plant.

Abroad, the seeds of the fragrant bedstraw are sold in the department vegetable crops, where the plant is considered spicy-aromatic. It is used to impart a pleasant taste and aroma to cheeses, vegetable and fruit salads, all kinds vegetable dishes, compote. They are flavored with tea, tobacco, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. fresh flowers plants are a good decoration for dishes, a popular component of flower cuisine. It is only necessary to observe moderation, since the plant is slightly poisonous.

Recipes for drinks with woodruff (bedstraw) fragrant:

Woodruff odorous ( lat. Asperula graveolens) is a perennial shrub, a species of the genus Asperula of the Rubiaceae family.

Other names:

fragrant woodruff, fragrant hornet, May grass.

Used part

collection time

Description

Perennial herbaceous plant of the Rubiaceae family. It has a thin, long, creeping rhizome. The stems are erect, tetrahedral, bare, unbranched, 10-40 cm high. Only at the base of the leaves are hairs in the form of a ring.

The leaves are sessile with spines located along the edges, directed forward. The lower leaves are lobed, collected in a ring of 4-6 pieces. The upper leaves are lanceolate, pointed, collected in a ring of 8 pieces.

The flowers are small, regular, collected at the top of the stems with three semi-umbels, forming a paniculate inflorescence. Corolla white, four-parted to the middle. Blooms in June - July. Fruit ripening in August - September. The fruit is dry, covered with hook-shaped bristles, splitting into two nuts.

Fragrant woodruff grows in broad-leaved, mixed forests, on riverine sands, in the forest-steppe zone. Distributed in the European part of Russia, Ukraine, the mountainous part of the Crimea, Altai, the Far East, the Sayans, Central Asia. It occurs in the basins of the Don, Volga, Dnieper.

Woodruff odorous propagates by seeds, division of rhizomes, cuttings.

Collection and preparation

For medicinal purposes, the herb of fragrant woodruff is used and harvested. Harvesting is carried out at the beginning of flowering plants. The collected grass is quickly dried in the open air in the shade or in a room with normal ventilation, spread out in a thin layer on paper or cloth. Dried raw materials are stored in closed jars in a dry place. Shelf life 1 year.

plant composition

Fragrant woodruff herb contains flavonoids, asperuloside lactone, coumarins, acids (tartaric, oxalic, malic, catechinic, silicic), traces of essential oil, fatty oil, ascorbic acid, tannins and bitter substances.

cultivation

It can grow on both very poor and fertile soils. Watering is regular. Takes out and light shadow. Propagated by seeds in June-July.

Application

Main medicinal effect woodruff in folk medicine is considered the ability to cure various types of dropsy. For this, an infusion of herbs has long been used. The sedative (soothing) properties of this infusion are well known. It eliminates insomnia, stops hysterical fits, reduces nerve pain different nature. For diseases urinary system it reduces the formation of stones and acts as a diuretic. Outwardly, a decoction and infusion of herbs are used for various skin diseases as a remedy wrong exchange substances. In the form of poultices, it is used for boils, skin rashes, bleeding from wounds, subcutaneous hemorrhages and poor blood clotting. Fresh crushed grass is bandaged to wounds that do not heal for a long time, changing the dressings daily.

Recipes

• decoction: 10-15 g of chopped herbs in 5 glasses of water, boil for 3-5 minutes and drink half a glass 3-4 times a day, and also add to others medicinal products that improves metabolism.
• infusion 1: 1 tbsp. a spoonful of dry chopped grass is poured with a glass of boiling water, allowed to cool, filtered and drunk 1 tbsp. spoon 3-4 times a day.
• infusion 2: 10-15 g per 1 liter of boiling water, drink half a cup warm 3-4 times a day - for diseases of the liver and gallbladder.

Contraindications

Woodruff is a very poisonous plant, therefore internal application it requires great care. Overdose may cause vomiting, headache, dizziness and even death.