HYBRID OR MEDICINAL Flint
Petasites hybridus (L.) Gaertn. (P. officinalis Moench.)
The Asteraceae family is Asieraceae, or Compositae
What does it look like? Perennial. The leaves are 50 cm in diameter, round-heart-shaped, angular-even-toothed, dense, white downy from below, then almost bare. Flowers are flesh-red. Baskets — in an oblong cluster on a long flower-bearing stem covered with leaves. The rhizome is large, creeping. Blooms in March – May.
Where does it grow? Scattered in the forest-steppe, occasionally in the Polissia, in the Carpathians and mountainous Crimea – over the banks of rivers and streams, in wet places.
What and when are collected? Roots – before flowering of the plant.
When is it used? The roots contain antispasmodic substances (volatile oil, synanthrine, helianthin, inulin, petazin, bitterness, tannins, manganese, ascorbic acid in the leaves). It is used in the form of tea—for colic, shortness of breath, gout, and in those cases of common gout, as well as for constipation, flatulence, peptic ulcer disease of the stomach and duodenum.
Tea is prepared like this. Boil 1 teaspoon of crushed roots in 1 glass of water over low heat for 10 minutes. They drink 2 glasses a day, in sips. In case of gout, take 2 tablespoons of a mixture of the roots of medicinal flint (or burdock roots), rhizomes of creeping wheatgrass, veronica grass and tricolor violet grass in a ratio of 2.5 : 2 : 2 : 3 per 1 liter of water, boil for 15 minutes and drink eat half a glass, 5 times a day, an hour after meals. For peptic ulcer – 25 g of rhizomes are boiled for 20 minutes in 1 liter of water. Drink warm for 2-6 months, 50 g 30 minutes before meals. Fresh leaves are applied to old ulcers (phytoncidal action)