(caragannik, yellow acacia)
Tall shrub with yellow-green smooth branches. The leaves are pinnate, with 4-8 pairs of elliptical light green leaflets. The flowers are yellow, on long stalks in bunches of 2-5 in the axils of the leaves. Blooms in May-June. The fruits are bare linear.
Seeds are edible, in famine years they were eaten. Leaves, bark, roots are considered medicinal raw materials. The leaves contain the glycoside karaganin, a lot of ascorbic acid and carotene, the seeds contain fatty oil.
In folk medicine, an infusion of the leaves and bark of karagana is taken for atherosclerosis on an equal footing (and sometimes together) with the Baikal skullcap and motherwort. An infusion of the leaves and bark is said to be a remedy for headaches, heartburn, and liver disease. An infusion of the root and bark is drunk for catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, an infusion of the leaves is recommended for scrofula.
As a good honey plant, caragana has long been used for planting apiaries. The honey obtained from her is considered to be extremely healing for beriberi, exhaustion, loss of strength, and coughing.
Along with the tree-like caragana, in folk medicine, dwarf caragana and steppe caragana are used as an antiscrofulous remedy.