Common coltsfoot is a perennial herbaceous plant from the Compositae family. Other names: fire lettuce, male flower, March flower, sand flower, butterbur, forest latrynik, mother grass, stepmother, dvumochnik, rannik, kolorechnaya grass
Description:
The earliest spring-blooming perennial herbaceous plant with a long creeping rhizome covered at the top with white scales. Flowering stems develop before leaves, short and thick, densely covered with scaly brownish leaves, pubescent and strongly elongated during fruiting. Flower baskets solitary, 2 cm across; all flowers are yellow, marginal – reed, arranged in several rows, internal – pistillate, tubular, with a tuft of simple hairs. The fruits are achenes, equipped with a white silky tuft. Real green leaves develop during the flowering of the plant, they are basal, on long petioles covered with felt, large, round-heart-shaped, notched-toothed, green above, shiny, cold to the touch, densely white felt below, warm to the touch (hence the name of the plant) .
Harvesting, description of raw materials:
In medicine, the leaves of the coltsfoot – Folium Farfarae are used, less often flowers – Flores Farfarae. The leaves are harvested in June. At this time, they are fully developed and have a uniform green color on top, later rusty spots are found on the leaves. The name “flowers” refers to flower baskets collected at the beginning of flowering. Dry in the shade. Leaves of the coltsfoot Leaf blade length 8-15 cm, width 10 cm, petiole length within 5 cm. The color is green above, the bottom of the plate is white felt. There is no smell, the taste is bitter, slimy. Coltsfoot flowers Raw materials consist of flower baskets 1-1.5 cm long with a stem residue of not more than 0.5 cm; no smell, bitter taste.
Contains active substances:
Coltsfoot contains mucous substances, bitter glycoside tussilagin, tannins, etc.
Medicinal use:
In medicine, it is used as an expectorant in the form of infusions and collections. In folk medicine, an aqueous decoction of the whole plant (often with the addition of honey) is drunk for coughs and pulmonary tuberculosis. Fresh leaves and sugar are stacked in layers in a bowl, covered and buried in the ground. When everything turns into a homogeneous mass, add 0.5 kg of honey per 1 kg of mass and eat 1 tablespoon 3 times every day for pulmonary tuberculosis, coltsfoot is used for childhood epilepsy, female diseases, apply leaves on wounds, abscesses, on places affected by erysipelas; they drink a decoction of coltsfoot for scrofula, tangles, and consumption.