When we say the word “thistle”, an evil weed appears before our eyes. What’s more, all gardeners and gardeners know what a thistle is. You can’t get rid of it – every piece of root chopped into small parts with a shovel gives rise to a new plant. But let’s try to look at thistles from the other side. First, as always, we will provide a description.
Thistle is a genus of plants to which many (about 70) representatives belong, but in Russia and Ukraine there are several of them, the most famous three, and all of them are weeds. Among them are annuals – yellow garden thistle (S. oieraceus), biennials and perennials – field thistle (S. arvensis) and others. These are plants up to 80-100 cm tall. Their leaves are prickly, lanceolate, whole or notched-bladed, with a heart-shaped base. The flowers are tongue-shaped, yellow, in baskets, collected in a common corymbose inflorescence. They bloom in June-September. The seeds germinate without a dormant period, and each plant has almost 6,500 seeds in total. Coupled with the ability to reproduce vegetatively (by pieces of roots), thistles are truly one of the most dangerous weeds. They grow in gardens, orchards and littered places in Eurasia and even in Africa.
So what are these plants good for? Garden thistle has medicinal properties, it is used in folk medicine. For this, the aerial part is collected during flowering, dried in the shade or in a well-ventilated room.
The raw material of the plant contains tannins, carotene (provitamin A) and a small amount of rubber.
Thistle herb exhibits choleretic, laxative, emetic, lactogenic (stimulates milk secretion in nursing mothers), hemostatic and anti-inflammatory effects. It is also used as an anthelmintic. Fresh milk juice is used in folk medicine for
liver diseases, and the whole plant for the treatment of gout and hemorrhoids, as well as hemoptysis. Crushed fresh leaves are applied to bleeding wounds. A salad made from young leaves of the plant (pre-soaked in water) is included in the therapeutic and preventive diet.
The story about the thistle would be incomplete if we did not mention its honey-bearing properties. Bees visit the flowers of various species of thistle well, collecting up to 120 kg of nectar from 1 hectare of thickets. Thistle honey is light yellow, tasty, with a subtle aroma; it is often used to feed bees in winter.
It would seem that it is an evil weed, but it turns out that weeds are also useful.
Herbal infusion. 1 tablespoon of raw material per 200 ml of boiling water. Insist for 1 hour, filter. Take 1 tablespoon 3-4 times a day.
Thistle leaf salad. Washed young leaves are soaked for 40 minutes. in cold water or in a 10% saline solution, remove excess moisture (wrap in a clean cloth), grind, mix with chopped pickles, add grated horseradish and season with sour cream, spices and salt – to taste.
Herbal infusion (external). A handful of dried herbs per 1 liter of boiling water, boil for 5 minutes, strain, pour into the bath. A 15-minute cool sitz bath. taken three times a week for hemorrhoids.