Nettle - general description
Nettle (Urtīca) is a flowering plant of the Nettle family. The height of the stem can range from 60 cm to one and a half meters. The rhizome is long creeping, underground has multiple shoots. The leaves are opposite, ovate-oblong, have large denticles and petioles.
The flowers are small, simple, perianth collected in spike-like, hanging from the branches of inflorescences. The fruit is in the form of a yellowish ovoid nut. The flowering period is from mid to late summer. Nettle has protection against herbivores in the form of burning hairs, which are large cells in the form of medical ampoules, which contain silicon salts, as well as histamine and formic acid.
Penetrating under the skin of an animal or human, the juice of the plant causes a sharp burn, which, in fact, is absolutely harmless and passes after a while. The exception is a special kind of New Zealand nettle, which is so toxic that it can even cause human death.
Nettle - types and places of growth
Nettle is distributed almost everywhere in the European part of Russia, Siberia, in the Far East and Central Asia. In total there are about 45 five species of this genus, most often you can find dioecious and stinging nettles. In the southern hemisphere, the plant is less common.
Nettle - healing properties
For more than two thousand years, man has been aware of the healing effects of this unique plant. Probably there is no herbal remedy that would be useful more than nettles. The list of diseases in which you can use it as a medicine is truly impressive. Anemia, atherosclerosis, kidney and bladder diseases, tuberculosis, hemorrhoids, metabolic disorders, numerous skin diseases, vascular and joint diseases.
This is a valuable source of ascorbic acid, which saved many people from starvation and vitamin deficiency during the hungry war years. Nettle has many medicinal properties: hemostatic, wound healing, anti-febrile, antimicrobial. It can serve as a restorative remedy for impotence, treats paralysis, scabies, nettle fever.
Nettle - dosage forms
As a medicinal raw material of nettle, seeds and leaves, in some cases roots, are used. A promising medicinal plant has a rich set of salts and much more vitamins than other products (for example, 5-10 times more vitamin C than in lemon and apples). The rich content of carotene takes her even forward carrots. In addition, it contains iron, copper, vitamins K and B, manganese. The drug "Allahol" for the treatment of bile ducts contains nettle extract. Harvested leaves for the winter from May to September, dried in the shade, so as not to destroy the nutrients in it.
Nettle - recipes
- Nettle brooms are used in a bath with joint rheumatism, radiculitis, muscle pain. Pre scalded with boiling water.
- Nettle broth in combination with honey is used to improve cardiac activity, in combination with milk - for vomiting and stomach pain. With hemorrhoids taken internally. A decoction is prepared in the usual way, pouring a spoonful of leaves with a glass of boiling water and insisting for 10 minutes.
- Powder from crushed seeds is used for bronchitis and urolithiasis.
- An infusion of roots is used for colds and coughs as an expectorant.
- A nettle broth delays hair loss and restores their growth.
Nettle - contraindications
Among the most famous contraindications for the use of nettles are varicose veins, thrombophlebitis and pregnancy.
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