Perennial herbaceous plant with ascending rhizome and thin adventitious roots. Stems standoff, up to 30 cm high, simple, like leaves, covered with short, stiff, glandular hairs. The leaves are entire, pointed, short-hairy, sometimes with whitish spots. Basal leaves are heart-oval or almost ovate, narrowed at the base into a narrow-winged petiole. Leaves of flower-bearing stems are sessile, semi-amplex, with slightly decurrent margins; the lower ones are elliptical, narrowed towards the base, the upper ones are oblong-ovate. The flowers are of medium size, regular, bisexual, collected at the tops of the stems in few-flowered curls. Calyx non-falling, 5-sided, tubular, covered with short stiff hairs; corolla falling, funnel-shaped, initially red, then purple, and at the end blue with a five-lobed limb; stamens 5, pistil one, ovary superior. The fruit is dry, consisting of 4 nuts enclosed in a bell-shaped calyx.
Lungwort medicinal is common in almost the entire central zone of the European part of Russia and in the Transcaucasus. Found in shady deciduous forests and shrubs.
For medicinal purposes, the leaves and the entire aerial part of the plant, collected during (before the flowers bloom) flowering, are used, dried in the shade in the air.
Along with the lungwort officinalis, people use a species close to it – the dark lungwort, which grows in all regions of the European part of Russia and in the Crimea.
Finished raw material – dark green grass with unblown flowers; the smell is weak, honey, the taste is sweetish, slimy.
Lungwort grass contains tannins, mucus. The herb has anti-inflammatory and astringent properties due to the presence of tannins in it, emollient properties due to the presence of mucous substances, diuretic due to silicon oxide, as well as hemostatic and wound healing properties.
In folk medicine, it is widely used as a means of regulating the activity of the endocrine glands, improving hematopoiesis, analgesic and emollient. It is used for lung disease (lung grass), pneumonia, pulmonary tuberculosis, hemoptysis, catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, bronchitis. A decoction of the herb is drunk for nervous diseases, heart diseases, headaches, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. The root, infused with alcohol, soothes toothache. It is applied externally as a wound healing agent – the leaves are applied to wounds, wounds are covered with powder from dried leaves. Used externally for scrofula as therapeutic baths.
Application
Simple decoction of herbs: 10 g per 200 ml; 1 st. spoon 3 times every day.
Compound decoction 1: 2 tbsp. spoons of crushed leaves per 1 liter of beer, add 1 tbsp. a spoonful of honey and boil it all to half the original volume; 1-2 teaspoons 3 times every day before meals (with water). An effective remedy for lung diseases.
Compound decoction 2: mix equal parts lungwort, plantain, sage, centaury and wormwood, take 1 tbsp. a spoonful of this mixture in a glass of boiling water and add 1 tbsp. a spoonful of honey, boiled, filtered and supplemented to a glass; use 1 tbsp. spoon 3 times every day before meals. This decoction helps with diseases of the lungs, bladder and hemorrhoids.
Infusion: at the rate of 30-40 g per 1 liter of water, vodka tincture. The latter is very effective in bowel diseases (diarrhea). In these cases, an infusion is recommended from a collection consisting of 40 g of lungwort herb, 1 tbsp. spoons of flaxseed, 1 tbsp. spoons of crushed comfrey root and 100 g of wild rose. The indicated collection is poured with 1 liter of water in the evening, the swollen rose hips are rubbed in the morning, filtered twice and the whole portion is taken in sips throughout the day.
Externally, an infusion of the whole plant is used to wash festering wounds and abscesses.
The roots of the plant are a good heart remedy, they also help with hoarseness, inflammation of the kidneys.