Evergreen shrub, reaches a height of one and a half meters. The leaves are reddish tomentose below, dark green above, alternate, linear-lanceolate with shortly curled down edges. The flowers are clustered in an umbel-shaped corymb, white or pink, with a strongly aromatic stupefying odor that can cause headaches in hot weather. The fruit is an oblong box with five valves, when ripe, it cracks from the base and throws out oblong seeds of a brownish-golden color. Blooms in May-June.
Ledum grows in the tundra and forest zones of Russia. It occurs mainly in swampy forests, in sphagnum bogs and peat bogs, sometimes forming continuous extensive thickets.
Medicinal raw materials are leaves and young twigs of grass. Collect raw materials in August-September. Dry in a dryer at a temperature of 50 degrees.
In all parts of the plant, with the exception of the roots, there is an essential oil (in leaves – up to 7.5%, in branches – up to 1.5%, in flowers – 2.3%, in fruits – up to 0.17%), which causes a strong smell of wild rosemary.
In medical practice, an infusion of wild rosemary leaves or herbs (1:10 or 1:15) is used orally as an expectorant in acute and chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma, and also in spastic conditions of the intestine. There are indications that an infusion of the leaves, when ingested, has a general sedative and narcotic effect.
With the internal use of wild rosemary products, one must be careful and not allow a single dose of more than 0.5 g in powder or more than 1 tbsp. spoons in a decoction, as the plant is poisonous and can cause inflammation of the mucous membrane of the gastrointestinal tract.
In folk medicine wild rosemary is used for colds, whooping cough, scrofula, bronchial asthma, rheumatism, gout, weeping eczema, also as a diaphoretic, diuretic and sedative. An aqueous decoction of flowers is used for coughing, whooping cough, bronchitis, pulmonary tuberculosis, rickets, diarrhea, and a weak bladder; for rheumatism, they drink a decoction of water, and rub it with a tincture of flowers in vodka, with the same tincture they rub severe bruises, for pain in the chest and for coughing, for scrofula, for tangles; drink from infertility, suffocation in infectious diseases, neurasthenia.
The narcotic properties of wild rosemary can be judged at least by the fact that earlier in pubs this herb was put in beer and vodka to make the drinkers more intoxicated and intoxicated.
Application
Decoction: 10 g per 200 ml; take 1 tbsp. spoon 3-4 times every day.
Mix 1: wild rosemary – 10 g (two teaspoons); marshmallow root – 25 g (five teaspoons); mix, brew in 1 liter of boiling water and insist for 10-15 minutes; take 1 tbsp. spoon after two hours with dysentery.
Mix 2: rosemary – 10 parts, marshmallow root – 20 parts, coltsfoot – 20 parts; brew two teaspoons of this mixture in a glass of boiling water, insist for 20 minutes, strain and drink half a glass 3-4 times every day (as an expectorant).
Mixture 3: marsh rosemary herbs – 25 g and small stinging nettle – 15 g, brew in 1 liter of boiling water; take half a glass 5-6 times every day for colds, rheumatism (except for rubbing) and bronchial asthma, for coughing. After 2 weeks of treatment, the patients were completely cured of bronchial asthma.
Ointment for pain in the bones, for scabies and lice: marsh wild rosemary leaves – 150 g; white hellebore root – 150g; pork fat – 500 g. Mix it all, put in the oven overnight, and then strain.
Powder from moths and bugs: crush the grass of marsh wild rosemary in a mortar until it turns into flour, sift through a thick sieve. Ledum sprigs are placed to scare away mice.