Name: Monetary loosestrife, or meadow tea
Primroses – Primulaceae.
Popular names: leech grass, coin grass, snake root, grass from a thousand diseases, wound grass.
Parts Used: Whole flowering plant with roots.
Pharmacy name: loosestrife herb – Lysimachiae herba (formerly: Herba Lysimachiae).
Botanical description. A perennial plant with a creeping stem that reaches a length of 10-50 cm and often takes root at the nodes. The tetrahedral stem is traditionally simple, slightly branched, with opposite short-petiolate leaves, shaped from round to elliptical, entire. Relatively large flowers located on pedicels have a golden yellow color and glands in the form of dark pink dots. Blooms in June-July. Verbeinik needs moisture. Therefore, it grows only in wet meadows, along coastal slopes and ditches filled with water, in thickets of shrubs in wet places.
Collection and preparation. The loosestrife is harvested with roots during flowering. The roots are freed from adhering earth and the plants are dried in a ventilated shaded place.
Active ingredients: tannins, saponins, the enzyme primverase and (in abundance) silicic acid.
Healing action and application. Scientific medicine does not use loosestrife, and only a few tea mixtures for coughs and colds contain this medicinal plant, although it, due to tannins and saponins, exhibits a rather pronounced healing effect.
My special advice. Mallow tea is a good drink for those suffering from dust lung disease (pneumoconiosis) or emphysema, who, especially in the morning, have great difficulty in being unable to cough up, get rid of mucus. In search of a remedy that would improve this action, I came across loosestrife, which in some areas is constantly used in tea mixtures as a healing plant for coughs. Its active substances justify such use, and mallow leaves, for example, in my opinion, would not be harmed by the addition of a drug containing saponin. The result, as far as I could see, was encouraging.
- Tea mixture with loosestrife: Mallow leaves 35.0 Loosestrife grass 15.0
Two teaspoons of the mixture pour 1/4 liter of boiling water and let it brew until the tincture reaches a temperature suitable for drinking. After that, it is filtered without squeezing the material. Tea should be drunk in small sips, gargling before swallowing, 2-3 cups every day. Sweetening with honey is only recommended if you don’t need to gargle.
Application in folk medicine. In folk medicine loosestrife is used for rheumatism and gout, diarrhea and internal bleeding. In addition, one constantly hears that a decoction (tea) from this plant as a compress promotes the healing of wounds, especially those that fester and do not heal for a long time. The skin is also treated with this remedy for eczema.
- Tea from loosestrife: 2 teaspoons with the top of plant material pour * / 4 liters of boiling water, leave for 5 minutes and filter. From cough they drink 2-3 times every day for 1 cup of tea sweetened with honey, for gastrointestinal diseases – unsweetened. For compresses on wounds, this infusion is diluted with an equal amount of chamomile tea. I would not recommend applying fresh crushed leaves to open wounds because of the risk of infection.
And here is how Adam Lonitzer (1563) wrote about this plant: “Looseberry is a very useful herb for fresh wounds, from chest and lung pains. bleeding. Aged in wine and drunk with honey, cures all ailments of the lungs and chest, relieves cough and shortness of breath, especially in babies – but do not take it against a dry cough. It can also be strained with water and sugar. This herb, soaked in wine, cleanses wounds, and the applied leaves heal them wonderfully. Wounded snakes are treated with this herb.” There is no reason to fear side effects.