Maclea Heart-shaped

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

The stately and assertive McLeay, if not limited, will quickly oust her neighbors in the garden. Tall decorative thickets resemble home-grown celandine, not only externally, but also internally. All parts of the plant contain milky juice, which has medicinal properties

Habitat

The birthplace of macklea (in the literature you can find the first name of the plant - Bocconia heart-shaped) is the southeast of China and Japan, where it remains green and elegant all year round, creating dense, rugged thickets. In our conditions, when growing macklea in gardens, its aboveground part is cut off for the winter.

Habit

A horizontal, powerful rhizome, lying close to the surface of the earth (at a depth of 10 cm) and rapidly expanding its territory, shows the world strong stems up to 2 meters high. At the base of the plant, the stems become lignified and brown. In order for the mackleu to “not have enough sunstroke,” the Creator wrapped the whole plant in a bluish, thin, waxy shell called “cuticle”, which means “skin” in Latin.

The lower leaves are larger than the upper ones, silvery-green, heart-lobed. The underside of the leaves is provided with dense stiff hairs. Drooping apical panicle inflorescence is collected from white or reddish-pink small flowers without petals. Fruits are flat bolls.

All parts of the plant are filled with reddish-yellow acrid sap, which practically does not wash off when it gets on clothes.

Growing

Maclea loves sunny places, but can grow in partial shade. The aboveground part of the plant is cut off for the winter, and the rhizomes can winter without additional shelter.

The soil loves light, humus-rich, dry, since the plant does not tolerate stagnant waterlogging.

Excess shoots must be periodically removed, preventing the growth of the bush. Otherwise, the macklea will quickly oust the neighbors, remaining in splendid isolation.

Maclea seeds take a long time to gain strength for germination and have a low germination rate, therefore it is more effective to propagate with a part of the rhizome. You should not transplant adult plants to a new place, they do not take root well.

Use in the garden

Tall thickets of macklea are very decorative. Large carved leaves in July are complemented by tall panicle inflorescences. Bred varieties with decorative coral pink flowers. In autumn, the thickets become golden lemon from the yellowing leaves.

Tall mackley bushes can decorate the background of a mixborder, decorate outbuildings at a summer cottage, hide a rickety hedge, create a kind of living screen along the garden paths. The plant is suitable for group and single plantings. The inflorescences are suitable for cutting, since they retain their freshness for a long time when cut.

Healing abilities

The main therapeutic effect of macklea is the merit of alkaloids (nitrogen-containing organic compounds of plant origin), which the plant is rich in. Two alkaloids that are close in structure, chelerythrine and sanguinarine, are components of a drug called "sanguirithrin", which has a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity.

Bacteria very quickly adapt to human-created drugs against them. Yesterday's panacea - antibiotics, not always and not all microbes can cope. In such cases, preparations made from plant materials of maklea help. They promote better healing of wounds, burns, cuts, bedsores, boils; more effectively affect the inflammatory processes in the body.

Preparation of medicinal raw materials

For healing needs, rhizomes with roots and mackley grass are harvested during flowering. So that the active substances do not have time to decompose, the drying of plant materials should be carried out in a short time.

In view of the toxicity of the plant, homemade infusions are not suitable for ingestion. They are used only externally for the treatment of skin diseases, for wound healing.