Highlander bird, or knotweed (goose, Konotop)
An annual herbaceous plant with a branched lying, ascending stem or straight cranked stem. The leaves are small, elliptical, lanceolate or linear. Flowers 3-5 pcs. in the axils of the leaves, pink or greenish with whitish, and along the edges with reddish lobes within the flower bed. The fruits are dull, dotted-tuberculate nuts. Blooms from May to August. It grows along roadsides, in weedy places, in fields almost everywhere in the temperate and warm zone of Russia.
For therapeutic purposes, plants, roots are used. Grass is harvested when it just blooms and the stems have not yet had time to harden.
Preparations from this plant have anti-inflammatory, hemostatic and astringent effects.
In folk medicine, highlander products are used primarily as an anti-inflammatory, tonic and diuretic for diseases of the kidneys, liver, bladder and stomach, and for jaundice.
As a sand expelling agent, products from this plant are used for sand and stones in the kidneys and bladder, for cholelithiasis.
Finally, knotweed helps with all lung diseases and even with pulmonary tuberculosis. In folk medical practice, it is noticed that it improves appetite and at the same time increases body weight. The latter is confirmed by the fact that geese grazing on knotweed for a long time quickly grow fat (hence the name of this plant – goose).
The plant is often used in mixtures with other herbs that are similar in their effect on the body. So, with severe diarrhea, they take equal parts knotweed grass, blackthorn fruits, blackberry stalks and marshmallow root (1 tablespoon per glass of boiling water) and use 1 tbsp. spoon 5-6 times every day.
Externally, the plant is used in the form of lotions from a decoction or from fresh juice for the treatment of purulent wounds.
Essence from fresh herb knotweed is used in homeopathy. Tibetan medicine uses the roots of the plant.
Application
Decoction: 20 g per 200 ml; 1 st. spoon 3 times every day.
Tea from the leaves of coltsfoot – 5 g, black elderberry flowers – 5 g, knotweed – 5 g – for pneumonia, severe bronchitis, pleurisy, etc.