Walker

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Walker (Latin Sisymbrium) - a genus of herbaceous weeds of the Cabbage family (lat. Brassicaceae), many species of which have healing powers. Plants of the Cabbage family are divided by botanists by genera, the species of which are very similar in appearance, and therefore often the same plant has a long list of synonymous names that refer it to different genera of the family. For example, plant species of the genus Descurainia (Latin Descurainia) belonging to the Cabbage family are often called "Walkers". Since the similarities are often not only superficial, but also have the same healing powers, such confusion is not too dangerous. Plants of the genus are distinguished by decorative showy leaves and traditional small flowers with four petals, forming a miniature living cross.

What's in your name

The genus received the Latin name "Sisymbrium" from Karl Linnaeus, who borrowed it from the Greeks, who got acquainted with the plants of the genus several thousand years ago, before Linnaeus decided to arrange all types of terrestrial plants on clear shelves. Unfortunately, a more detailed meaning of this Greek word has not reached our days.

The Russian name "Walker" may have been given to the plant for its independent and hardy nature, which allows the plant to freely "walk" through the uninhabited expanses of wastelands and fields, often turning into an annoying weed for cultivated plants.

Description

A branched root system gives birth to erect, branched, often pubescent, stems covered with spectacular carved leaves with a beautiful jagged edge. The height of plants, depending on the species and living conditions, varies from fifteen to fifty centimeters. The surface of the leaf plate can be bare, or, like a stem, covered with hairs. The lifespan of different species is personal and can be equal to one or two years, but some species manage to live for several years in one place, becoming perennial grasses.

The racemose inflorescences are formed by typical small flowers of plants of the Cabbage family, which have a green calyx of erect or straight sepals, a corolla of four oblong-oval yellow petals and a gallant pistil surrounded by six stamens.

The fruit is the traditional multi-seeded pods.

Varieties

Botanists have no consensus about the size of the Gulyavnik genus. Various sources suggest a large run-up, from fifty to ninety species. Here are several types:

* Medicinal walker (Latin Sisymbrium officinale)

* Volga walker (Latin Sisymbrium volgense)

* Oriented walker (Latin Sisymbrium orientale)

* Yellow walker (Latin Sisymbrium luteum)

* Losel's walker (Latin Sisymbrium loeselii)

* Walker Irio (Latin Sisymbrium irio)

* High walker (Latin Sisymbrium altissimum).

Use and healing abilities

Some species, for example, Loesel's Walker (Latin Sisymbrium loeselii) and Tall Walker (Latin Sisymbrium altissimum), are readily eaten by ruminants while the leaves of the plant are young and green. During the period of seed ripening, plants become dangerous for animals to eat, since a toxic glycoside called "sinigrin" accumulates in the seeds.

Therefore, at the time of mature seeds, plants of the genus become attractive to traditional healers who know the rules for dosing toxic components in order to use plants to rid a person of a number of ailments.

Decoctions and infusions from fresh plant herbs collected during flowering are used to treat respiratory diseases. With their anti-inflammatory effect, they help faster healing of wounds on the skin. They are even credited with the ability to defeat cancerous tumors. Such miracles are given to a person by plants growing everywhere and considered by humans to be weeds.

Fatty seed oil, which has a pungent taste and a specific pungent mustard odor, transforms the seeds of certain species of the genus into a mustard substitute.