A beautiful flowering plant from the fireweed family, up to 150 cm high, with lilac-purple, sometimes pinkish flowers, collected in tall brushes. Fireweed flowers consist of four fused sepals and four free petals, eight stamens and a pistil bent down. Leaves lanceolate, small. The fruit is a capsule in the form of a narrow long pod with numerous fluffy seeds.
Grows on fellings, forest fires, in damp spruce and pine forests, on embankments.
Medicinal raw materials are the flowering tops of the plant, leaves. In folk medicine, fireweed infusion is used for headaches, metabolic disorders and stomach ulcers (flowering tops are brewed and drunk as tea). Wounds are sprinkled with powdered leaves, and a decoction of the leaves is drunk for scrofula, gastric diseases and as a sleeping pill, for inflammation of the ear, throat and nose.
A sedative, anticonvulsant effect of the plant, similar to the effect of chlorpromazine, has been established.
Young shoots of fireweed are consumed boiled, like asparagus. The rhizomes are sweet, they are eaten boiled and raw, in the Caucasus they are used to make flour, bake bread, and are also used to make alcoholic beverages. Seeds contain up to 45% of edible oil.
A decoction of the leaves has a strong anti-inflammatory effect, especially with peptic ulcer.
A 10% infusion or decoction of the leaves is used as an effective pain reliever for any inflammation of the mucous membranes.
Application
Infusion: 1 tbsp. a spoonful of leaves (herbs) insist 2 hours in a glass of boiling water, drink 1 tbsp. spoon 3-4 times every day.
Fresh crushed leaves, applied to wounds, contribute to their rapid healing.