EUROPEAN BATHING BATH
Perennial rather tall herbaceous plant with fibrous roots. The leaves are palmately dissected into 5 sharply dentate lobes, the lower ones are petiolate, the upper ones are erect. Flowers solitary, large, 2.5-3 cm in diameter, spherical, from 12-15 light yellow calyx-leaves, imbricately overlapping each other; petals narrow, orange, half as long as sepals; the fruit is a composite leaflet. Blooms in May-June.
Grows in forest clearings, shrubs, damp meadows.
Fresh grass contains protoanemonin (anemo-nol), traces of alkaloids, leaves contain saponins. Toxic.
An aqueous decoction of herbs in folk medicine is drunk for gastric diseases; an ointment prepared from fresh herbs with any fat is used for abscesses.