WHITE WILLOW (willow, willow, willow tretychinkovy, belotal, Russian willow, black willow, holly willow, willow, reddish, goat willow, bredina)
All willows are perennial woody plants, trees (white willow) or shrubs (everything else). The leaves are simple with stipules, petiolate, entire, entire, green above, often white-pubescent below. Flowers without flowers within the flower bed, unisexual, collected in brushes, often drooping – earrings. Male – from 2-5 stamens, female – from one pistil with nectaries at its base. The fruit is a box. The seeds are hairy. Blooms until leaves appear. Collection, drying and storage are generally accepted.
The medicinal raw material is the bark. Its active principles are vitamin C, flavones, glycoside salicin, tannins (3.7-11.5%).
Willow bark preparations are used in scientific medicine as an astringent, antipyretic, and sometimes as an anthelmintic and hemostatic agent, as an antimalarial agent (willow bark, more often goat willow).
A decoction and powder of the bark is used as an external remedy for the treatment of wounds and abscesses, for hair loss, as an internal remedy for dyspepsia, whooping cough, catarrhs (with purulent mucous discharge), fever or malaria and chronic rheumatism.
In folk medicine, willow bark is used in the form of a decoction mainly for fever, rheumatism, as well as an astringent and anti-inflammatory for stomatitis, gingivitis and catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, as a hemostatic (gastric and uterine bleeding), diuretic and choleretic agent. Often, to increase the anti-inflammatory effect of a decoction of willow bark, its administration is combined with salicylic acid preparations. Willow bark powder is used as a hemostatic (applied to the wound surface), as well as a neutralizing agent (to purify water from bacteria).
Application
Infusion: 15 g per 200 ml; 1 st. spoon 3-4 times every day as a choleretic and diuretic or for rinsing (with inflammatory diseases).
Decoction: 20 g per 200 ml; 1 st. spoon 3 times every day (in the treatment of rheumatism) or 5-6 times every day for other diseases.
A strong decoction of a mixture of willow bark and burdock roots (in equal parts) is washed with dandruff, itching of the head and hair loss.