Name: Divina skіpetrovidna
Scepter-shaped mullein (Scepter-shaped cowslip) —
Verbascum thapsiforme Schrad.
Rannikovi family — Scrophulariaceae
What does it look like? Biennial herbaceous plant. In the first year, it gives a rosette of leaves, in the second, a 50-200 cm tall flower-bearing stem grows. The leaves are large, oblong-elliptic, notched; the middle and upper ones coincide along the entire length of the internode. The whole plant is woolly and downy. Five-petalled flowers, light yellow, large, 2.5-3 cm in diameter, collected in a spike-shaped raceme downwards. The smell of fresh flowers is delicate, dry ones smell of honey. Blooms in June – July.
Where does it grow? In the Steppe and Forest-Steppe, occasionally in the western regions of Ukraine, in Polissia, in the mountainous and Southern Crimea – on hills, by roads, on sunny forest edges, on fallows, on quarries and stony places, on steep river banks, railway embankments.
What and when are collected? Open corollas of flowers, in dry sunny weather, tearing them from the cups; dry immediately. They don’t pick up those that have fallen on the ground.
When is it used? As a softening, expectorant, antispasmodic agent.
As a means of enveloping the affected areas with catarrh of the throat, with cough, hemoptysis, bronchitis, emphysema, whooping cough, with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, constipation, hemorrhoids (the flowers contain bitter substances, volatile oil, saponins, tannins, coumarin, pectins , flavonoids, yellow xanthophyll dye and mucus), with inflammation of the mucous membrane of the eyes. Weakens painful reflexes, convulsions, reduces tissue swelling. The action of the wonder is mildly narcotic.
Used in the form of tea. For 1 glass of boiling water (or milk), take 1 tablespoon of flowers, boil for a minute, infuse for 10 minutes, strain through cheesecloth and drink 2 glasses a day, in sips. Syrup is prepared against cough in children. Take 1 tablespoon of wild flowers and altea root in 1 glass of water, boil for 15-20 minutes, add 200 g of sugar and boil until syrup is obtained. They are given to drink 3-4 teaspoonfuls per day.
When adults cough, pour 1 cup of boiling water over 1 teaspoon of a mixture (equal to one) of wild flowers, wild calendula flowers, sand sedum flowers, and altea flowers, boil for 5 minutes, and drink 1-2 cups a day. Instead of fish oil for children, it is recommended to boil a mixture of 1 tablespoon of wild flowers and 1 teaspoon of marigold flowers and chamomile flowers in a glass of water for 5 minutes; add 1 tablespoon of sugar and give children to drink thio 1 tablespoon three times a day when losing weight or exhaustion (effect of xanthophyll on cellular metabolism). As a diaphoretic, take 1 tablespoon of a mixture (in equal measure) of wild flowers, flowers of wild sedum, black elder, linden flowers and dried raspberry berries in 2 cups of boiling water, steep for half an hour and drink hot at night.
Wounds and cracks on women’s nipples are smeared with the juice of grated carrots and sprinkled with a fine powder of wild flowers .
For gargling, boil 1 tablespoon of a mixture of wild flowers , leaves of common alder, althea root, and flowers of wild marigolds (equally) in 1 glass of water for 5 minutes and use warm. To wash bedsores and burned areas, take 1 tablespoon of a mixture of wild flowers, St. John’s wort, chamomile flowers in a ratio of 3:3:2 per 1 glass of water, boil for 15 minutes and strain into a clean bottle (wound-healing effect of xanthophyll and other dyes, imanin ).
For baths with ulcers, wounds and hemorrhoids, a handful of flowers or crushed roots are brewed in 5 liters of water, boiled for 1 minute, infused and cold sitting baths of fifty minutes are taken three times a week.