Name: Vovchug prickly – prickly harrow
Spiny wolfberry (Ononis spinosa); Legume family (Fabaceae); thorny steelhead
When harvesting this plant, you need to be careful, otherwise you can get seriously injured. The prickly wolfberry is a herbaceous perennial 25-80 cm tall, with a straight or ascending stem at the base. The internodes are covered with hairs mainly on one side, rarely around. Lateral shoots are armed with sharp, usually paired, spines. The leaves are alternate, the lower and middle leaves are trifoliate, the upper ones are single, simple. Leaflets are elongated-oval, glandular-pubescent. The flowers are bisexual, irregular, placed in the axils of the leaves at the tops of the twigs. Sometimes they form a multi-flowered spike-like apical inflorescence. The corolla is bright pink. The plant blooms in June-August. The fruit is a pubescent oval bean. A common spiny wolffish, as a rule, in the western part of the middle strip of Russia on sandy slopes, along the banks of rivers and along roads.
This prickly plant is extremely healing. Rhizomes, leaves and flowers are collected for medicinal purposes. Rhizomes are harvested in autumn or spring before the appearance of leaves, leaves and flowers – during the flowering period. This species of wolfberry, unlike its relative the wild wolfberry (O. arvensis), is used only in folk medicine.
The plant contains tannins, glycosides, organic acids and their salts, essential and fatty oils, phytosterol, mucilaginous and resinous substances, sugar and starch.
Lupus drugs have a diaphoretic, diuretic, disinfectant effect, can dissolve stones and regulate metabolism in the body. They are used in the form of tea or decoction for inflammatory diseases of the urinary organs, disorders of uric acid metabolism, to dissolve stones and sand in the kidneys and urinary tract, and to stimulate the activity of the glands of internal secretion. Tea made from leaves and decoctions of rhizomes are useful as a “blood purifier” for furunculosis and various rashes on the skin, as well as a hemostatic agent for hemorrhoids and other bleeding.
The thorny wolfberry is not a very generous honey bearer. The honey productivity of the plant is only 25 kg from 1 hectare of thickets.
Tea from leaves and flowers. 1 teaspoon of a mixture of leaves and flowers per 200 ml of boiling water, infuse for 3-5 minutes, filter. Take 1 glass per day in small portions.
Decoction of rhizomes. 1 tablespoon of crushed rhizomes per 500 ml of boiling water. Boil for 10 minutes, strain, squeeze. Take 1/2 cup 3 times a day.