Rejuvenated

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

Rejuvenated (lat. Sempervivum) - a genus of perennial plants with fleshy leaves, most often covered with glandular hairs, belonging to the family

Crassula (lat. Crassulaceae) … Fresh succulent plant leaves can be eaten. Infusions and decoctions from fresh leaves have healing powers and are used to treat many human ailments.

What's in your name

The fantastic endurance of plants of the genus to unfavorable environmental conditions gave botanists a reason for the Latin name of the genus, which sounds like "Sempervivum". In Russian translation, this phrase means "Always alive".

Description

Plants of the genus Molodilo are herbaceous perennial natural creatures that are not afraid of drought, since they store moisture for future use in their fleshy pointed leaves. Plants are undersized. Their height varies from five to forty centimeters. Spectacular rosettes of numerous leaves take on a spherical or slightly flattened shape, and grow up to ten to fifteen centimeters in diameter. Rosette shoots, called "stolons" by botanists, grow taller. The green, ovate-lanceolate, fleshy leaves often have reddening tips. The edges of the leaves are provided with glandular hairs-cilia.

Flowering occurs once in a plant's life. From the rosette of leaves, a densely pubescent fleshy peduncle, covered with succulent pointed-nosed leaves, comes into the world, at the top of which there is a picturesque corymbose inflorescence. The inflorescence is formed by regular hermaphrodite stellate flowers. The flower corolla consists of pointed petals, which are longer than the fleshy sepals, fused at the base into a protective calyx, usually covered with hairs. The color of flower petals can be very different: from white and yellow to pinkish, raspberry, and even purple. The flowers are small, but very graceful, like miniature stars.

The pollinated flower turns into a leaflet fruit containing small numerous seeds. After the seeds ripen, the plant dies. Reproduction takes place in two ways: through sowing seeds and vegetatively. The mother plant is overgrown with numerous daughter rosettes of leaves, forming a continuous plantation of picturesque fleshy rosettes.

In the wild, Molodilo prefers to be located in the sandy hills open to the sun, or in the clearings of dry pine forests. Damp places and dense shade are not created for the plants of the genus Molodilo.

Varieties of the genus Molodilo

The similarity of different species of the genus to each other presents difficulties for botanists for a clear classification of species, and therefore the number of species varies in the literature from thirty to fifty. The most famous species are the following:

* Rejuvenated roofing (lat. Sempervivum tectorum)

* Russian rejuvenated (lat. Sempervivum ruthenicum)

* Rejuvenated marble (lat. Sempervivum marmoreum)

* Rejuvenated spherical (lat. Sempervivum globiferum)

* Rejuvenated cobweb (lat. Sempervivum arachnoideum).

Usage

Plants of the genus Molodilo with their unpretentious attitude to the living conditions and picturesque appearance have gained great popularity when decorating flower beds, especially rockeries, rocky walls, and are also used as a ground cover plant.

In the old days, people protected their homes from thunder and lightning by planting Molodilo on the roofs. Hence the name of one species came from - Rejuvenated roofing.

Fresh leaves are used in cooking: in green or vegetable salads, in cooking cabbage soup and soups, as well as in other dishes.

Fleshy and juicy leaves contain many substances useful to humans, and therefore are actively used as healing agents with anesthetic, sedative, anti-inflammatory, wound healing effect.