2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Medicinal sweet clover is one of the plants of a family called legumes, in Latin the name of this plant will sound like this: Melilotus officinalis L. As for the name of the sweet clover family itself, in Latin it will be like this: Fabaceae Lindl.
Description of medicinal sweet clover
Melilotus officinalis is a biennial herb, endowed with a straight stem, which will be branched to the base, and its height will be about one and a half to two meters. The root is pivotal and endowed with numerous lateral branches. The leaves of this plant are alternate, trifoliate and long-petiolate. The leaves in outline will be endowed with oblong-ovoid shapes, along the edges they will be serrate-toothed, from above they will be painted in bluish-green tones, and from below they will be paler. The flowers of sweet clover are found in multicolored racemes, the length of which is about five to seven millimeters. There are only ten stamens, nine of them grow together into a tube that will cover the ovary. The fruit is a brown bean. The seeds of this plant are oval yellow or yellow-brown, they can be either small tuberous or smooth.
Melilotus officinalis blooms during the period from June to August. Fruit ripening begins in August and ends in September. Under natural conditions, this plant can be found on the territory of the European part of Russia, in the Caucasus, in Central Asia, as well as in the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Western Siberia. For growth, sweet clover prefers places in fields and meadows, along roads and bushes, on the slopes of ravines and gullies, in young plantings, on the edges of forests.
Description of the medicinal properties of sweet clover
For medicinal purposes, it is recommended to use the herb of this plant, which should be harvested in June-September. Melilotin herb contains coumarin, melilotin, melilotic acid and coumaric acid. From the fresh herb of this plant, the glycoside coumarigen is released: when dried, protein, flavonoids and essential oils are formed from this substance. The flowers contain essential oil, mucous and resinous substances, tannin, choline and flavone glycoside. The seeds of sweet clover contain protein, essential oil and starch.
It should be noted that sweet clover has been used as a medicinal plant since ancient times. The infusion and decoction of this plant is endowed with antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, emollient, hypotensive, narcotic, analgesic, expectorant, carminative, wound healing and anticoagulant effects.
Preparations based on the herb of this plant are used for ischemic and hypertension, thrombophlebitis, atherosclerosis and increased blood clotting. In addition, such a remedy is used as an expectorant and anti-inflammatory agent for bronchitis.
In folk medicine, the infusion and decoction of this plant is used in the treatment of bronchial asthma, bronchitis, inflammation of the ovaries, pain in the heart, scanty and painful menstruation, as well as edema, cystitis and a decrease in the amount of milk in the mammary glands of nursing mothers.
As an anti-inflammatory, it is recommended to use the following remedy: for its preparation, it is recommended to take one tablespoon of the herb of this plant for one glass of boiling water. After that, such a mixture is infused for one hour, and then such a mixture is thoroughly filtered. Take this remedy one fourth of a glass three times a day before the start of a meal.
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