Always Alive Rejuvenated

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

Fresh leaves of a picturesque and "always alive" plant can be used all summer long in the dacha menu, adding them to salads, summer vitamin cabbage soup or other dishes, as well as preparing healing infusions and decoctions from them that can fight a number of human ailments

A resilient and sustainable creation of nature

For the ability of the plants of the genus Molodilo to survive in the most unfavorable conditions of existence, botanists assigned the genus a name that in Latin sounds like "Sempervivum". This complex word consists of two simple and very optimistic Latin words meaning, translated into Russian, “always alive”.

Numerous representatives of the genus are very similar to each other, and therefore even professional botanists sometimes find it difficult to determine the type of plant. Therefore, we will assume that the cute green "hedgehogs" with fleshy leaves, growing today in many summer cottages, belong to the species "Sempervivum tectorum", which literally can be translated from Latin into Russian as "Forever living roof". The official name in Russian sounds like "Roofing Rejuvenated". Looking at the orderly arrangement of succulent leaves in the rosette, creating in the imagination the appearance of a tiled roof, we can conclude that it was the leaves that gave the name to the specific epithet of this species. However, in the literature on plants, reference is made to our ancestors, who protected their homes from formidable heavenly lightning, arranging flower beds from Molodil on thatched or clay roofs. Fleshy plant leaves took upon themselves the formidable messages of Heaven, extinguishing their anger at the human community and saving buildings from fire. Even today, "Rejuvenated Roofing" can be seen on old buildings, where, according to the "old habit", it clings tenaciously to the dilapidated walls or climbs onto the roof of the building.

Delightful unpretentiousness of the plant

Rejuvenated will conquer any grower with its unpretentiousness to the composition of the soil, impressive resistance to diseases and annoying pests of all stripes, as well as high frost resistance, which allows it to grow even on Siberian lands. However, in order for the plant to delight the caregivers with its effectively arranged rosettes of leaves, the most favorable planting site will be an alpine slide open to the sun's rays. Although Molodilo can tolerate light partial shade.

It would seem that fleshy leaves need moist places to maintain their juiciness. But, this conclusion is not true. Of course, a plant needs moisture, like any living plant, but damp places and stagnant moisture are destructive for Molodil.

Rejuvenated - a sacrificial plant. It pleases the grower with its corymbose inflorescences of pinkish-crimson star-shaped flowers only once in a lifetime, as, for example, occurs in the powerful cereal herb Bamboo. After the ripening of small seeds hiding in multileaf fruits, the plant dies, trusting the seeds to carry the life baton. But, they are so small that they force Molodilo to reproduce vegetatively for safety reasons, producing numerous daughter rosettes, covering the ground around the mother plant with a continuous carpet. So, flower growers have no trouble with reproduction of this miracle of nature, just have time to plant young offspring.

Human use of the plant

The decorativeness of the tiled fleshy rosettes, combined with the amazing unpretentiousness of the plant, turn Molodilo into a popular perennial ground cover decoration for summer cottages.

In addition to its spectacular appearance, Molodilo, if a person wishes, can become part of the dacha diet, after a five-minute blanching, making up, for example, a company equal to the number of grated apples. Adding sugar and sour cream to the taste of the summer resident to the vitamin pair, we get an unusual dish that can surprise guests and households. Molodila leaves will be appropriate in the composition of products for cooking summer cabbage soup, as well as other summer dishes.

Also rejuvenated was a skillful healer with a lot of healing abilities. An infusion of fresh, finely chopped fleshy leaves helps with neurasthenia, impotence of the male half of Mankind and painful menstruation of the female half, stomach ulcers and problems with the respiratory system. A decoction of the leaves fights sore throat, periodontal disease, stomatitis and diseases of the human skin.