Honeysuckle: description.
Distinguish more than 200 kinds of honeysuckle. The most common honeysuckle, common, or wolfberry - is found everywhere, blue honeysuckle grows in the Carpathians, honeysuckle Altaic and Caucasian honeysuckle grows in Eastern Siberia, the Kamchatka honeysuckle grows in the Far East. Among a large number of species, only a few have edible berries. In our country you can consume only honeysuckle edible.
On the territory of the Russian Federation, the most common varieties of honeysuckle are edible are the Kamchatka and Altai honeysuckle. These plants are perennial shrubs, up to 2 meters in height, shoots stand straight and slightly curved. Small leaves are pubescent and form a dense crown on top. The flowers are also small, pale with a yellow tinge. The berries have a dark blue to black color, sometimes covered with a bluish bloom. The forms of berries are round barrels. Fruit ripening occurs before other berries, and collection time lasts from the very beginning of summer to the end of July. The taste of the sweet and sour berries, sometimes with bitterness, helps to quench your thirst.
The plant is completely unpretentious, resistant to frost, often growing in cottages, representing a hedge. In forests and forest belts, several bushes can be connected to dense thickets, growing mainly in damp places, including swamps.
Useful substances contained in the honeysuckle edible.
The chemical composition of the fruits of honeysuckle edible is very diverse. The berries contain vitamins A, C and B, they contain fructose, tannins, organic acids, pectin, macro and microelements, namely magnesium, copper, aluminum, potassium, phosphorus, manganese, calcium, iodine.
The content of chemicals in honeysuckle depends on the place where it grows. For example, a hot climate reduces the acidity of berries, and the content of sugar, coloring and tanning, on the contrary, is higher, which gives a slight bitterness. The cooler climate gives the berries of honeysuckle an edible high acidity, and also increases the vitamin C. The continental climate allows the fruits of honeysuckle to be sweeter, with an increased content of vitamin C and sugars.
All the useful substances that are contained in the honeysuckle berries can be preserved by harvesting medicinal raw materials. Fruits can be dried, used in conservation or freeze. Use also the bark of the trunks, collected in the early spring, by drying. Castings and flowers are also suitable for the preparation of medicinal raw materials. They are collected during flowering, after drying and stored in a dry place.
Description of the properties of edible honeysuckle.
The healing properties are different as the berries of honeysuckle edible, as well as flowers, leaves and branches.
Fresh berries are a storehouse of vitamins and minerals. They are suitable as a fortifying agent and a source of nutrients and vitamins after a long winter, as they ripen before other berries. The useful elements in them perfectly reduce arterial pressure, help strengthen the walls of blood vessels, reduce the risk of atherosclerosis, eliminate anemia, increase immunity, promote good functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, and have an antioxidant and antitumor effect on the body. Berries of honeysuckle edible can bind and remove from the human body salts of heavy metals.
Juice made from fresh honeysuckle berries is famous for its excellent wound healing properties, and is also able to treat various skin diseases, for example, trophic ulcers, psoriasis, eczema and others. To do this, you need to lubricate the affected skin areas with juice for a couple of weeks.
Decoctions and infusions from flowers and leaves of honeysuckle edible have a number of medicinal properties: antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and decongestant. They should be taken with diseases of the urinary tract and kidneys, edema, diarrhea. With honeysuckle, you can also rinse your eyes and gargle with various inflammatory processes.
Infusions from the branches and bark of honeysuckle edible help with swelling, inflammation of the large intestine, they treat burns and wash wounds, use to rinse throat for colds. Rheumatism and gout use baths from young twigs of honeysuckle.
Recipes for preparation of medicines from honeysuckle edible.
Honeysuckle as a medicine is taken in the form of fresh berries, as well as in the form of infusions and medicines prepared from it.
- Infusion of honeysuckle berries for internal reception:
a tablespoon of fruit is poured in one glass of boiling water, it is insisted for 4 hours in a thermos bottle and 2 tablespoons are taken 3 times a day for kidney, stomach and hypertension diseases;
- Infusion prepared from leaves of honeysuckle edible:
a teaspoon of the crushed dry leaves of honeysuckle, the preparation of which should be made during the flowering period, is poured with one glass of boiling water, it is insisted for 30 minutes, after the infusion it is necessary to strain and take on a tablespoon three times a day. This infusion also caresses the throat and rinses the wounds;
- Decoction based on the bark of honeysuckle edible for use inside:
A tablespoon of chopped crust of honeysuckle is poured with a glass of cold water, after boiling on low heat for a quarter of an hour and applied to meals for half an hour. Helps cope with swelling.
- Decoction based on the bark of honeysuckle edible for external use:
2 tablespoons chopped crust of honeysuckle poured 1 glass of cold water, after boiling on low heat for a quarter of an hour, then you should strain the infusion and apply to wash your eyes and rinse your throat.
Honeysuckle edible is an incredibly useful and tasty berry.