Adonis Volzhsky

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

Adonis Volga (lat. Adonis wolgensis) - a herbaceous perennial plant of the genus Adonis (lat. Adonis), which is part of the Buttercup family (lat. Ranunculaceae). The plant looks very similar to the spring Adonis (lat. Adonis vernalis), only smaller in size, more densely branching, decorated with smaller flowers and shorter, wider lobes of its pinnately dissected leaves. It has healing abilities, but in this it is inferior to the Spring Adonis.

What's in your name

The Latin name of the genus is based on ancient Greek myths about the tragic fate of a handsome young man named Adonis.

The specific epithet is associated with the main place of growth of the plant, although it can be found in many other places on our planet.

Description

The basis of many years of Adonis Volga is an underground brownish-black rhizome, short, but thick. From it, a few stems are born on the surface of the earth, which from about the middle begin to overgrow with lateral shoots, forming a branched bush from fifteen to thirty centimeters high, similar to a small and delicate coniferous creature.

The leaves are a true natural work of art as a result of the dissection of the leaf plate into numerous thin lobes. Stems and leaves of a young plant are covered with abundant hairy pubescence.

The flowers are similar in shape and color to the flowers of Adonis spring, only inferior to them in size. Free, flirty, pale yellow petals along the upper edge are decorated with several teeth and reflect the sunny spring rays of the month of April with their shiny surface. In the center of the flower, numerous stamens create a spectacular hemisphere.

After pollination, the flower gives way to a rounded compound fruit with hairy achenes.

Cultivation in culture

Volga Adonis is much less common in man-made gardens and flower beds than Spring Adonis, although, in principle, it does not differ in its habits from the latter, but, on the contrary, is more unpretentious and easy to grow. Perhaps the reason is the long period of its growing up, because the flowering plant begins to delight its owners only in the sixth to eighth year after sowing the seeds, as well as a short flowering period, because already in May-June the Volga Adonis begins to bear fruit.

In the wild, it most often grows on chestnut soils, which are characterized by a poor composition of nutrients and insufficient moisture, covered with poor vegetation. That is, these are dry steppes, a mid-mountain belt with grassy slopes. Sometimes Volga Adonis can be found at the edge of the forest or in forest glades.

The healing abilities of Adonis of the Volga

All parts of Adonis Volga contain many all kinds of useful components. For example, there is a fatty oil in the roots of a plant.

But for medicinal purposes, the herb of the plant is used, that is, that which is on the surface of the earth: stems, leaves, flowers. They contain such substances as: a number of flavonoids that affect the activity of many enzymes in the human body; coumarins with versatile healing properties; adonite, a carbohydrate-related compound, a pentaatomic alcohol, first obtained from Adonis vernalis; carbohydrates; vitamin "C" (in the leaves of the plant).

All this wealth is used by healers to maintain the proper functioning of the heart, respiratory organs and human nervous system.

In essence, Adonis of the Volga duplicates the healing abilities of Adonis of the spring, but is used in a narrower range.