2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Astragalus fluffy (lat. Astragalus dasyanthus) - a herbaceous pubescent perennial plant of the genus Astragalus (lat. Astragalus), which is a representative of the glorious legume family (lat. Fabaceae). In addition to dense white pubescence, the plant has many other advantages that were noticed by man and are actively used by him for the benefit of people. One of these abilities is the rich content in plant tissues of chemicals that have a beneficial effect on maintaining the health of the human body.
What's in your name
If the meaning of the Latin name of the genus "Astragalus" should be sought in the depths of centuries, deciphering the ancient Greek words, which can be read about in an article describing the genus Astragalus, then the specific epithet of the described plant is understandable to everyone who has ever seen a blooming Astragalus fluffy-flowered. Looking at the yellow inflorescence of the plant, one gets the impression that a white cloud suddenly fell to the ground from the sky, which, clinging to the flowers, was left to lie around their corollas in white fluffy shreds.
Someone prefers a synonym for the name - "Woolly Astragalus". It seems to them that the reason for the white pubescence of the inflorescence was not a heavenly cloud, but a white lamb that ran past the plant and left shreds of its snow-white wool on yellow flower corollas.
Description
Both versions of white pubescence of inflorescences described above could well be real facts, because Astragalus fluffy-flowered grows in the endless steppes of the European part of our country, Ukraine, the Balkan Peninsula …
The strong root system of Astragalus fluffy gives birth to a white light herbaceous perennial plant with shaggy red-haired stems, the length of which ranges from 4 to 20 centimeters. Stems can be persistent erect, or creep along the ground, lying on the surface, or slightly rising above it.
A distinctive feature of this species are white or yellowish hairs that cover literally all aerial parts of the plant with a very thick layer. Only the inner side of the flower corollas escaped their attention. The pubescence drowns out the main colors of the plant, giving them a grayish appearance. Only yellow corollas of flowers look at the world with their sun petals.
Composite leaves are supplied with elongated or triangular-lanceolate short subulate-pointed stipules. On a common petiole up to 20 centimeters long, there are oblong-oval leaves in pairs. There can be from 12 to 14 such pairs on one petiole. The length of individual leaves reaches 2.0 centimeters and their width is up to 0.6 centimeters. Stipules and leaves of a compound leaf have a shaggy appearance from the hairs covering them.
Peduncles, reaching 15 centimeters, almost do not lag behind complex leaves. Powerful dense inflorescences collect up to 20 yellow moth-type flowers in their clusters. The corolla is protected by a shaggy bell-shaped cup made of sepals accreted at the base, which diverge higher to the sides in the form of subulate teeth. The hairy cover spared only the inner side of the flower petals, taking even a column of the ovary in its arms. Flowering lasts for the first two months of the summer.
Already in July, fruits begin to set - oval beans with a rounded base and a sharp or truncated nose. Fruiting lasts until October.
The chemical composition of the herb and healing abilities
The herb Astragalus fluffy, which is harvested during the flowering period, without waiting for fruit setting, is rich in a long list of substances useful for the human body. It contains organic acids, essential oil, flavonoids, a number of vitamins, including vitamin "C", whose fame was recently debunked by scientists, a huge list of trace elements. The chemical element "Selenium", which stimulates protein synthesis, is selectively accumulated by Astragalus.
Such a chemical richness of the plant helps people in the initial stage of hypertension and with a number of other problems with the cardiovascular system of the body. The herb infusion soothes the nervous system, lowers blood pressure, and is used for rinsing with angina and diseases of the oral cavity. The broth is used to soften cough, with rheumatism of the joints, as a diuretic.
A warning
Do not self-medicate, especially for people with kidney problems, suffering from swelling.
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