Wild Lettuce

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Video: Wild Lettuce

Video: Wild Lettuce
Video: How to Identify Wild Lettuce (and distinguish from common lookalikes) 2024, April
Wild Lettuce
Wild Lettuce
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Wild lettuce is one of the plants of the family called Asteraceae or Compositae, in Latin the name of this plant will sound as follows: Lactuca scariola L. As for the name of the wild lettuce family itself, in Latin it will be: Asteraceae Dumort. (Compositae Giseke).

Description of wild lettuce

Wild lettuce is a biennial herb, endowed with white milky sap, which will be about sixty to one hundred and fifty centimeters high. This plant will be endowed with a taproot and a rather dense furrowed stem, painted in whitish or yellowish tones. The leaves of wild lettuce are sessile, lower and middle lyre-pinnately dissected, and their lobes will be bent back. Along the middle vein of the leaves of this plant are peculiar hard spines. The leaves are arranged with an edge, and their ends will point to the north and south. Flowers of wild lettuce are small and reed, they are endowed with pubescence in the form of a tuft and form small baskets, which in turn gather in a pyramidal paniculate inflorescence. Wild lettuce fruits are brownish achenes, endowed with volutes.

The flowering of this plant occurs in the period from July to August. Under natural conditions, this plant is found in the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, the European part of Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia and in the south of Western Siberia. For growth, this plant prefers places near dwellings and roads, vegetable gardens, fields, weedy places and places among shrubs.

Description of the medicinal properties of wild lettuce

It should be noted that the composition of wild lettuce contains a poisonous milky white juice, which in turn contains lactucin, bitterness, alkaloids, resins, lactucirin and lactucycline.

As for traditional medicine, an aqueous decoction, which is prepared on the basis of wild lettuce herb, is quite widespread here. In addition, the resin obtained from the milky sap of this plant is also used. Such funds are used as sedatives and pain relievers, and are also used for whooping cough, bronchial asthma, laryngitis, chronic bronchitis, shortness of breath, persistent cough and insomnia. Also, such a healing agent is used as a diuretic for various diseases of the bladder, gout and dropsy. It should be noted that sometimes wild lettuce is also used in homeopathy.

An infusion prepared on the basis of wild lettuce herb is recommended for gargling with various throat ailments, gingivitis, abrasions, stomatitis and bleeding gums. In addition, in folk medicine, crushed wild lettuce leaves are applied to wounds and cuts to speed up their healing, while the boiled herb of this plant should be applied to the throat for a variety of colds.

To prepare an infusion based on this plant, you will need to take one teaspoon of dry crushed wild lettuce herb, which is placed in two glasses of boiling water for four hours. After that, such a healing mixture should be very thoroughly filtered. Take the received medicinal product based on wild lettuce three times a day before the start of a meal, one tablespoon.

The resin of the milky sap of this plant is used at one third of a gram. Nevertheless, one should not forget that the improper use of such a healing agent can cause poisoning, which will be accompanied not only by vomiting and nausea, but also by clouding of consciousness. Therefore, it is so important in no case to exceed the recommended intake dose.

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