Gravilat urban (undergrowth)

What does it look like? A perennial herbaceous plant 60 cm tall, with a multi-headed reddish rhizome, which tastes and smells like cloves. The stem is hollow, few-branched, straight, rough-hairy. The leaves are soft-hairy, the basal leaves are large-pinnate, the stem leaves are sessile, three-lobed. Flowers on long peduncles are single, five-petalled, yellow. The seeds have hooks that cling to clothing. Blooms in June – August.

Where does it grow? Mostly in the chernozem zone throughout Ukraine, except for the Carpathian forests, the Western Forest Steppe and the Sage Steppe, in bushes, forests, in littered places, sometimes under the mud of estates.

What and when are collected? The whole plant – during flowering, rhizomes – in autumn.

When is it used? As an anti-inflammatory and antiseptic agent for mucous diarrhea, catarrh of the stomach and colon; with internal bleeding; nervous disorders; hemorrhoids; with inflammation of the lungs, as an expectorant and with night sweats; when vomiting; bloating and abdominal pain; with impaired liver function. For 1 cup of boiling water, take 1 teaspoon of gravilat grass and infuse for 10 minutes. The roots are more effective in the same dose, but they must be boiled for 10 minutes. They drink 1-2 glasses a day, in sips. Fragrant decoction of the roots of gravilat is used for baldness in women, for rinsing the mouth and throat with sore throats, stomatitis and gingivitis, and for baths for children suffering from rickets and scrofula. With inflammation of the gums, amphodontosis with oil infused for 14 days on the roots of gravilatin a ratio of 2:1 (clove oil), apply to bleeding gums.

The diversity of the therapeutic effect is determined by: hein glycoside, tannins (40%), bitters, resins, and a volatile oil that has the smell of cloves (from the derivative of hein — eugenol). A relative of the urban gravilat is mountain siversia, or the male mountain gravilat (Parageum montanum (L.) Naga), which grows in the Carpathians on subalpine and alpine meadows. A decoction is also prepared from its roots. Boil 1 tablespoon of crushed roots in an enameled vessel in 1 glass of water for 3-5 minutes. Take 100 ml three times a day.

The healing effect is explained by the rich content of tannins, flavonoids, volatile oil saponins, resin. It is drunk for gastrointestinal diseases (diarrhea, gastritis) after a three-day fast, for peptic ulcer disease of the stomach and duodenum, for acute and chronic cholecystitis, cystitis and cystopielitis, meio-oligorrhea, hemorrhoids. Externally, it is used for rinsing the mouth – for periodontitis (amphodontosis), gingivitis, stomatitis, hemorrhoids (in the form of ointment and compresses on swollen gums). The plant is non-poisonous (B. V. Demchun).

And also pay attention to the article Gravylat gorodskoy. Gravylat river