Common Horse Chestnut

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Video: Common Horse Chestnut

Video: Common Horse Chestnut
Video: A year in the life of a horse chestnut tree 2024, April
Common Horse Chestnut
Common Horse Chestnut
Anonim
Common horse chestnut
Common horse chestnut

This long-lasting and powerful tree is beautiful all year round. Horse chestnut is the most beautiful garden and park decoration and enjoys well-deserved fame. It is not only decorative, but also generously shares its flowers, fruits, leaves and bark, from which people prepare all kinds of medicines

Distribution in nature

The Balkan Peninsula is considered the birthplace of the horse chestnut. It can be found in mountain forests that have found shelter in southern Bulgaria and northern Greece, where they climb slopes up to 1200 meters above sea level. In the middle of the 16th century, the chestnut became boring on the peninsula, and it moved deeper into Europe, transforming into a cultivated plant. He also reached Russia, where he is now bred, from the southern lands to the latitude of St. Petersburg.

Description

Horse chestnut is a large deciduous tree that grows up to 30 meters in height. On long petioles, five to seven fingerlike compound leaves are located opposite, reaching 25 centimeters in diameter.

Pyramidal erect racemes-inflorescences are collected from white flowers with a reddish tint. The length of the inflorescences is up to 30 centimeters.

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Horse chestnut fruits are round bolls covered with thorns. Inside the boxes are three-centimeter flattened shiny brown seeds.

Growing

Horse chestnut may well grow on clay soils, but it still prefers moderately moist fertile loams or sandy loams, not tolerating excessive moisture..

The landing site should be open to the sun, although the chestnut tolerates partial shade. But a thick shadow acts depressingly on him, not allowing him to form a dense and beautiful crown and inhibiting flowering.

Horse chestnut is propagated by seeds immediately after they are harvested. Autumn sowing sprouts next spring. After growing the seedlings, they are transplanted to a permanent place.

Horse chestnut is very resistant to pests and diseases.

Use in the garden

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Chestnut is especially decorative in May, when it is covered with large pyramidal white candles-inflorescences. But it is also famous for its dark green foliage, which forms a compact dense oval crown.

Horse chestnut is a large tree that creates a thick shade. When planting it in a summer cottage, one must not forget about it. Indeed, not every lawn will grow under its dense crown, but you can plant shade-tolerant ground cover perennials, for example, periwinkle, tenacious, and hoofed.

The tree is beautiful in a single planting against the backdrop of a colorful meadow or green lawn.

In cities, shady alleys are created from it, in which you can find coolness even in hot summers.

Healing action

The world official medicine widely practices preparations from different parts of the horse chestnut. These are pills, and drops, and ointments, and suppositories, and solutions for injections.

The drugs cover a wide range of diseases. They reduce capillary permeability, tone up veins, reduce blood viscosity, and increase blood circulation.

The drugs normalize the work of the digestive organs, have analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects.

They are recommended for diseases of the respiratory system, to relieve coughs. Used for prostate adenoma and prostatitis.

Freshly squeezed flower juice helps with varicose veins and hemorrhoids.

Collection and procurement

Flowers are harvested at the beginning of flowering, that is, in May, and leaves in the first half of summer. Tinctures and decoctions are prepared from flowers and leaves.

The bark is removed from the branches of three to five years of age during the period of sap flow.

The fruits are harvested after they ripen, when they themselves fall out of the pericarp or are easily separated from it.

Raw materials are dried in the shade of awnings or in well-ventilated areas.

Contraindications: Not dangerous when dispensed.

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