One-biennial herbaceous plant up to 30 cm high. The root is thin, branched. The stem is thin, trihedral, hollow, branching. The leaves are alternate, short-petiolate or sessile, all with pinnate stipules, the lower ones are rounded heart-shaped, the upper ones are elliptical. The flower is tricolor (the petals are dark blue or purple above, yellow below, and sometimes white on the sides). On this basis, it is easy to distinguish it from the fragrant violet, whose petals are purple. However, the main difference between tricolor violet and fragrant violet is that it does not have a violet smell. The fruit is a single-celled, ovoid capsule that opens with three flaps. Blooms from April to autumn.
Violet tricolor often grows with fragrant violet in forests, between shrubs, in glades and edges.
In fields, fallows, roadsides, wastelands, a close species is found – field violet, which differs from the tricolor in smaller flowers, white upper, bright yellow middle and lower petals.
Medicinal raw material is a grass without roots of these species under the general name of tricolor violet, collected during flowering (no later than June). Drying is normal – but fast.
The herb contains mucus, tartaric acid, salicylic acid, vitamin C, etc.
Violet preparations have expectorant, emollient, diaphoretic and diuretic effects. In scientific medicine, violet tricolor is used as an expectorant for bronchitis, laryngitis, as a mucous and enveloping agent for gastritis, a diuretic for congestion (in the form of an infusion of 1:10). The herb is used to make the neogalene product triviolin, which is used in cough drops.
In folk medicine, tricolor violet is used for rickets, rheumatism, scrofula, gout, colds, coughs, as a diaphoretic, expectorant, externally – for skin tuberculosis in babies, from boils, for bleeding, diathesis, childhood eczema, skin diseases, etc.
Babies are bathed in a decoction of herbs, given to drink with diathesis, childhood eczema, skin tuberculosis in babies, boils, colds, female diseases, bleeding, babies are bathed with rickets, lotions are made for eczema, scrofula; with a toothache, rinse the mouth with a decoction; drink a decoction for chest pain, with stuttering. In addition to tricolor violet, field violet grass is used for the same purposes.
Application
Decoction: 20 g per 200 ml; take 1/2-1 cup 2-3 times every day (expectorant) or 1 tbsp. spoon 3 times every day.
Tincture: 30%; 20-30 drops 3 times every day. Powder (for babies), sometimes with sugar; give 0.2-0.5 g 2-4 times every day.
Infusion: 20 g per 1 cup of boiling water; half a glass or 1 glass 3 times every day.
Abuse of large doses causes irritation of the intestines.
Herbal tea is drunk for rheumatism, scrofula, rickets, lung diseases, gout, rheumatism and articular rheumatism, atherosclerosis, nervous attacks, metabolic disorders.