Ranunculus repens ; Ranunculaceae family; creeping buttercup
Different types of yellow flowers, and in the middle zone of the European part of Russia they are more than ZO, are poisonous to animals and humans, if the plants themselves or products from them are taken internally.” Therefore, due to high toxicity, products from yellow flowers are not used in scientific medicine, but they are often used in folk, Chinese, and Tibetan medicine, as well as in homeopathy. The plant products are usually prescribed as an external irritant or distractor. It is believed that when dried, the yolk loses some of its toxicity.
In this essay, we will talk about the creeping buttercup, which is widespread in the middle zone of Russia and Siberia. It is a perennial herb 15-70 cm tall, with an ascending stem. At the base of the stem are long creeping aerial shoots (hence the species epithet), which take root in the nodes. The leaves of the plant, with the exception of the upper ones, are petiolate, three- or twice-pinnate, with segments divided three times on the sharp tooth of the lobe. The flowers are regular, bisexual, five-petalled, shiny, yellow, quite large – up to 12-16 mm. They bloom in May-June. The fruit is a collective achene.
Creeping buttercup usually grows on wet meadows, swamps, river and lake shores, sometimes forming continuous carpet thickets. It grows in the Baltic States, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine (in wet places throughout the territory, except for the Wormwood Steppe).
The above-ground part of the plant is collected during flowering for medicinal purposes. It contains alkaloids (0.1%), tannins, coumarins, flavonoids, saponins, vitamin C and other organic compounds.
Due to high toxicity, the plant is used only externally. For medicinal purposes, fresh crushed yellow-green grass is used as a wound-healing, purulent, and bactericidal agent. In Tibetan medicine, the plant is used for headaches (compresses), dropsy, edema, and some gynecological diseases.
Juice from a fresh plant or pulp from fresh leaves is applied to warts, they treat scabies. Compresses from fresh grass are used for myositis and tumors, as well as for rheumatism, gout, radiculitis, osteochondrosis, and arthritis. Use the herb with caution: with its prolonged contact with the skin, burns with the formation of blisters are possible. In the folk medicine of Eastern Siberia, an infusion of the yellow-green herb was previously prescribed for mycosis of the skin in the form of washing the affected areas of the body.
To reduce the unpleasant impression of the poisonous properties of honeydew, you can add that it gives up to 10-12 kg of honey from 1 hectare of thickets. It’s not much, but if you take into account its number… In addition, bees return to the hive with rich honeydew (bright yellow yolk pollen) – an important protein food.