Scented woodruff is a herbaceous perennial plant with a stem of four faces. It has a fragrant pleasant 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. Also, this plant is 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 plant 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, as well as regular tubularbell-shaped, 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. The dry plant emits a sophisticated coumarin aroma.
Firewood habitats
The fragrant woodruff can usually be seen in the forest-steppe and forest zone located in the CIS countries, 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 up to the mid-mountain belt.
Collecting and harvesting
The plant is harvested and harvested from the beginning of May until 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 carried out in well-closed containers for 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 (tartaric, malic, catechinic, oxalic, silicic), 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 both medicinal properties and contraindications. Fragrant woodruff is not a plant used in traditional medicine. It is used for various skin diseases as a wound healing and astringent, due to the content of tannins in it. The active ingredient lactone asperuloside has an anti-inflammatory effect. It also performs an antispasmodic function, affecting smooth muscles. And coumarins, which are part of the plant, treat nervous diseases and stop pain. A variety of woodruff extracts and tinctures (herbal preparations) dilate capillaries and increase blood circulation without altering blood viscosity.
Contraindication to use may be during pregnancy and lactation. The plant is poisonous, so it is dangerous to cause an allergic reaction to it, and in addition, it can cause poisoning with its accompanying symptoms: headache, vomiting and dizziness.
Use woodruff
Means with fragrant woodruff calm the nervous system, stimulate sweating and urine excretion, improve metabolic processes, give an analgesic effect, heal wounds, eliminateseizures and tantrums, improve sleep and heart function. Decoctions and infusions are used in alternative medicine as a diuretic for inflammation of the 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 an excellent remedy for moths.
The use of woodruff in food production
Odorous woodruff has a very important nutritional value. Since it is a fragrant spicy herb containing bitterness, coumarin and tannins, it is used to give an original taste to culinary dishes. 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 flavor 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 indispensablean 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 northern Europe, woodruff is used to flavor several types of smoked products.
Dosage
There are several recipes for preparing woodruff herb infusion.
1. It is necessary to take one small spoonful of crushed leaves of the plant and pour it with one glass of hot boiled water, then let the mixture brew for 3 hours, and then strain thoroughly. It is recommended to drink the infusion in half a glass 4 times a day.
2. Pour 2 small spoons of finely chopped woodruff into one glass of cold clean water, 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.
