Delicate Swimsuit

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

The bather adorns river valleys, meadows and forest glades with gentle flowering. Scandinavian and old Germanic legends say that this wonderful plant was a favorite flower of funny trolls. There is a swimsuit growing in wet meadows, near water bodies and in picturesque highlands, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as in areas with a temperate and cold climate

Getting to know the plant

The bather is a gentle and surprisingly beautiful representative of the Buttercup family, which belongs to the genus of perennial herbaceous plants. It is very close to the marigold, another genus of buttercups, distinguished by the ability to grow calmly right in the water. The swimsuit owes its interesting name to its penchant for wet habitats. There are about thirty types of swimwear in nature.

The average height of the beauty is 60 - 80 cm. Her leaves can be lobed or finger-separated. The lower (mainly petiolate) leaves of the peduncles are slightly larger. From the lush rosettes formed by the leaves of the swimsuit, beautiful flowering shoots depart - in many of its varieties, they also branch out.

Although the flowers of various types of swimsuits have a varied color, however, their structure has a lot in common. The shape of the flowers can be spherical, or it can be open or half-open. Single flowers are located at the ends of erect stems. Many types of swimwear are characterized by closed inner cavities of flowers, only at the top they have tiny holes. This feature provides excellent protection for pollen from unwanted rain and dew damage. All parts of the flowers are arranged in a spiral; flowers have an unobtrusive and very pleasant aroma.

The fruits of the swimsuit are quite peculiar - leaflets collected in spherical infructescence with small noses opening along their inner seams. Oval, shiny seeds are colored black.

Swimsuit properties

Bathers of all varieties are honey plants. They are eaten with pleasure by livestock. In the 19th century, a yellow textile paint was made from the flowers of this amazing plant. And in the middle of the 20th century, methods were even developed for obtaining a yellow dye for the manufacture of edible fats.

Certain types of bathing suits are positioned in oriental medicine as effective medicinal plants. Meanwhile, it is important to know that the roots of all types of swimsuits are extremely poisonous. In mysterious Tibetan medicine, as well as in folk medicine of Altai, Mongolia and distant Western Siberia, the Altai bathing suit is widely used along with the Asian bathing suit.

How to grow

The soil for growing beautiful swimsuits should be chosen to be moist and rich in humus. At the same time, the places can be both sunny and darkened, however, the swimsuit will definitely not grow on dehydrated land on sunny grounds.

The swimsuit reproduces both with the help of seeds and by means of division: it is propagated by seeds in the fall (seeds that quickly lose their germination are sown into the ground immediately after they are harvested), and by division - in the spring. However, in order to divide the roots, you will need to wait - this can be done only in the fifth year of the swimsuit's life. During planting, the root collar is deepened by two centimeters. When propagating by seeds for the favorable growth of seedlings, it is not advised to carry out a pick. New plants are slowly planted in a permanent place, usually in August.

The distance between plants when planting, depending on their variety, is kept in the range of 30 - 60 cm.

The bather needs regular and very abundant watering. At the same time, it is important to avoid stagnant water, periodically weed and loosen the soil.

To maintain the plant in good condition, ash treatment in early spring, as well as fertilizing with nitrogen-containing and complex fertilizers, will be useful. At the very beginning of flowering, it is useful to spray the swimsuit with epin. Old dying leaves in the fall should be removed in order to avoid the further development of fungal diseases.

The swimsuit does not tolerate a transplant very well, so its flowering after this procedure can be expected at least in a year. Without a transplant in one place, it can grow up to 10 years.

The bather is very viable and practically not susceptible to disease and pest attacks. However, it is extremely rare that it can be affected by septoria, smut, as well as a short-bodied penetrating nematode.