The four-leaved raven eye is a genus of monocotyledonous plants from the Melanthiaceae family. Other names: crowberries, wolfberries, cross-grass.
Description:
A perennial herbaceous plant with an erect stem and a longish rhizome; the upper 30% of the stem is surrounded by a whorl of 4 cruciformly arranged broadly ovate leaves. Flower solitary at the top of the stem; within the flower garden greenish-yellow of 8-10 leaflets. The fruit is a bluish-black berry. It blooms in May-June. A common plant of shady dampish forests, found in spruce, alder, deciduous forests and shrubs.
Contains active substances:
The crow’s eye contains the poisonous saponin parstifin, the glycoside paridine, the roots contain alkaloids, steroidal saponins.
Medicinal use:
The whole plant is insisted on vodka and drunk in small doses for pulmonary tuberculosis, nerve pain, nervous twitches, a decoction of leaves and berries is drunk for pulmonary tuberculosis, used for sweating. Crow’s eye is also used in homeopathy, for headaches, neuralgia, for laryngitis, hoarseness, bronchial disease, with poorly healing wounds.