BLUE CORN (Field) ( Cornflower blue )
One-two-year-old herbaceous plant up to 50 cm tall, slightly cobwebby fibrous. The root is weak, taproot, branched. Stem straight, branched. Basal leaves petiolate, alternate, entire or three-lobed, obovate-lanceolate, sessile. Stem leaves linear or linear-lanceolate, sessile. Flowers in baskets, singly located on long peduncles, external – barren, blue, funnel-shaped, internally tubular, purple – fertile. Basket wrapper of leaflets of various shapes: outer ovoid with a membranous rim, inner lanceolate with a membranous appendage. The fruit is a brownish-gray achene with a tuft. Blooms in June-July.
It grows as a weed in crops and fallow fields, meadows in all regions of Russia.
Medicinal raw materials are marginal funnel-shaped flowers. Collection of flowers is made in the period of full flowering. The flowers are pulled out of the plucked baskets and dried immediately in a dark, well-ventilated area. Finished raw materials – blue flowers – should not contain flower baskets more than 1%, faded flowers – more than 6%.
Cornflower flowers contain bitter glycoside cent-taurine (knitsin), cyanine (dye), etc.
In medical practice, flowers are used as an infusion or as a mild diuretic and choleretic agent: brew 1 teaspoon of flowers with a glass of boiling water, leave for 20 minutes, cool and strain. Take 1/4 cup 20 minutes before meals 3 times daily. In addition, cornflower flowers are part of a diuretic tea.
In folk medicine, cornflower flowers are used as a choleretic, diuretic and diaphoretic: for dropsy, jaundice, inflammation of the kidneys, bladder and colds; with cystitis, nervous diseases, with uterine bleeding; when frightened, babies are given a decoction to drink and bathe in it, with a toothache; with erysipelas, they fumigate with smoke from burned inflorescences; from consumption, with bloody urine, have anti-spasmodic properties.
Decoctions of marginal flowers are often used as eye lotions for some eye diseases as an anti-inflammatory, and sometimes as a cauterizing and disinfectant. A decoction of flowers is used externally for night blindness. During treatment, you must follow a diet: often eat liver, fish oil.
Application
Decoction: 1 teaspoon of flowers in a glass of boiling water; use 1/4 cup 3 times every day, apply externally as a lotion.
Infusion: 1:10.
Liquid extract in 40° alcohol: 1:10.
Cornflower is part of the diuretic tea of the following composition: cornflower flowers – 1 part, licorice root – 1 part, bearberry leaf – 3 parts.
And also pay attention to the article Cornflower blue