Woodlice Is A Medicinal Forecaster. Starfish. Beneficial Features. Photo

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Woodlice Is A Medicinal Forecaster. Starfish. Beneficial Features. Photo
Woodlice Is A Medicinal Forecaster. Starfish. Beneficial Features. Photo

Video: Woodlice Is A Medicinal Forecaster. Starfish. Beneficial Features. Photo

Video: Woodlice Is A Medicinal Forecaster. Starfish. Beneficial Features. Photo
Video: The Secret Life of Woodlice 2024, March
Anonim

Woodlouse is considered a malicious weed, which is extremely difficult to fight when it gets to the summer cottage, in kitchen gardens and orchards. But not everyone knows how useful, decorative and interesting this plant is. The presence of woodlice among forage grasses contributes to an increase in milk yield in goats and cows. It is used in the textile industry to dye wool blue. In early spring, it is suitable for preparing salads and seasonings, as well as for feeding birds and small animals, which we now partially grow in our dachas. Woodlice is a good honey plant, but it could find its best application in health and medical practice.

Woodlouse, or Medium Starwort (Stellaria media)
Woodlouse, or Medium Starwort (Stellaria media)

Content:

  • Description of wood lice
  • Interesting fact about woodlice
  • How to deal with woodlice on the site?
  • Other types of starworms
  • The healing properties of woodlice
  • The use of woodlice in medicine

Description of wood lice

Wood lice, average stellaria (Stellaria media) is an annual herb of the Clove family. It is also popularly known under the names: hernia, heart herb.

Medium stellate is an annual herb from the clove family. The root is thin, the stems are weak, branched, tender and rooting, the length is from 10 to 30 cm. The leaves are opposite, ovate, whole, the upper ones are sessile, the lower ones are petiolar. Wood lice flowers on long stalks, small, located in the axils of the upper leaves. Wood lice fruit is an oblong capsule. Because of the flowers that resemble small stars, the plant received one of its names - stellate. Blooms from May to September. It grows like a weed, on moist soils - in gardens, fields, along river banks, on forest edges, along ditches and ravines.

Location: woodlice grows best in semi-shaded places on loose, fairly rich and moist soil.

Reproduction: by dividing the bush and seeds, which are sown before winter or in March-April. After two picks, woodlice seedlings are planted in open ground at a distance of 4-5 cm between plants.

Usage: woodlice is a very unpretentious plant used in carpet flower beds as a background to form white or yellow lawns.

Woodlouse, or Medium Starwort (Stellaria media)
Woodlouse, or Medium Starwort (Stellaria media)

Interesting fact about woodlice

Woodlice has an amazing ability to predict the weather, as it is very sensitive to fluctuations in temperature and humidity. In the old days, this plant-barometer predicted the weather for the near future. If until 9 o'clock in the morning the corolla of the flower did not rise and did not open, then it will rain in the afternoon. And after the rain, the plant becomes, as it were, crystal - thanks to the stalks overflowing with water, shining in the sun. This is probably where its popular name stems from - wood lice.

How to deal with woodlice on the site?

Woodlice blooms throughout the warm season. From spring to autumn gives 2-3 generations. It can reproduce vegetatively. When seeds germinate in autumn, the plant hibernates and completes its development the next year. Even the most severe frosts are not afraid of him.

In early spring, mature plants, those that have gone under the snow, bloom. In less than a month they give seeds, which germinate immediately and after a month and a half, in turn, give seeds. Seeds that have overwintered in the soil also sprout in the spring. Their plants usually bloom in May. And so in a race one generation after another, woodlice grows from April to October. Over the summer, if it is not destroyed in a timely manner, the weed can completely cover the surface of the site.

The green attack is especially dangerous for those gardeners and gardeners who do not fight with it or do not know how to fight. For example, a person will uproot the grass and leave it in the garden. Wood louse is exceptionally tenacious and, if the soil is damp, the grass, even torn into pieces, takes root and grows.

The soil is so clogged with its seeds that as soon as the top layer is crossed, new generations of plants creep out of the ground. According to scientists, woodlice seeds do not lose their germination in the ground for up to 30 years! Therefore, it is necessary to uproot the grass before it produces seeds. The stems should be taken out of the plot or in the very corner, where they are stacked in compost heaps.

Woodlouse settles exclusively on soils with an acidic and strongly acidic reaction. If you deacidify them to a neutral pH, then the weeds will simply disappear. Liming is best done in autumn, and in spring, use chalk or cement dust and then select fertilizers for the garden that do not acidify the soil.

Careful processing of the site, the alternation of crops, fertilization with seasoned manure will help the gardener not to provoke the active development of this weed in his area.

Yes, woodlice, quite rightly, is considered one of the worst weeds, but other than that, it is very useful, and some types of starworms are very decorative.

Other types of starworms

The genus Stellaria contains about 120 species of plants, distributed almost everywhere, mainly in cold and moderately warm countries of both hemispheres, also in the mountainous regions of the subtropics and tropics.

Forked stellaria - Stellaria dichotoma

Siberia, Far East, Mongolia. In the mountain-steppe zone, it rises up to 2050 m, along stony, well-warmed slopes, talus, in crevices of rocks, on outcrops of rocks, granite taluses, sand dunes, gravelly gravels of dried-up channels, in deserted steppes, pine forest-steppe.

Perennial with a thick (5-15 mm thick) vertical root. Stems 10-30 cm tall, tough, sticky from dense glandular pubescence and with long simple hairs, rarely almost glabrous, usually cylindrical or slightly ribbed in the upper part, dichotomously branched from the base, forming spherical bushes. Leaves (0.5) 1-2.5 cm long, 1-8 (10) mm wide, cordate-ovate to elliptic, acuminate, with a short spinous apex, glandular pubescent or glabrous, sessile.

The flowers are numerous, in a complex, almost unilateral dichasia, on long, rigid, glandular pubescent, bent pedicels; bracts are herbaceous. Sepals are 4-5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, pointed, narrow-lanceolate, glandular pubescent, green, very narrowly fringed. Petals slightly longer than or equal to the calyx, incised 1 / 2-1 / 3. Anthers yellow or white, approx. 0.5 mm long Boll about 3 mm in diameter, shorter than the calyx, spherical-ovate, 2-3 seeds.

Seeds are 2 mm long, almost black, oval, slightly lumpy when mature, and distinctly tuberous when young, especially along the back.

Fork starworm
Fork starworm

Cereal starweed - Stellaria graminea

It grows almost throughout the country, except for the Caucasus.

Creeping perennial with branched, tetrahedral stems 10-40 cm tall. The leaves are opposite, linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, up to 4 cm long, ciliate along the edge. The inflorescence is spreading, multi-flowered. Blooms all summer. The fruit is an oblong capsule. Poisonous.

In culture, the golden form with yellow flowers is usually used. The natural form is very aggressive.

Cereal starwort
Cereal starwort

Lanceolate or stiff-leaved stellate - Stellaria holostea

Distributed in Europe, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, Iran and Western Siberia. Grows in deciduous, coniferous and coniferous-deciduous forests on a fairly fertile soil.

A perennial herb with a thin, branchy creeping rhizome. Stems up to 15-40 cm in height, tetrahedral, ascending, smooth brittle. Leaves sessile, narrow-lanceolate, sharp, 4-7 cm long, sharp-rough along the edge. The flowers are white in a loose panicle inflorescence up to 1.5-2 cm in diameter with up to half bipartite petals. Blooms in May-June for 15-20 days. The fruits ripen in June-July. The plant is characterized by high vegetative mobility due to its high speed and long growth. Adults can grow in breadth up to 1 m per season.

Lanceolate stellate is used to decorate large spots among trees in places where the sun's rays glide from time to time. She quickly fills the free space, has beautiful dark green leaves that go green before winter, but usually die off during winter. The plant is also spectacular during flowering due to the abundance of rather large flowers.

Lanceolate or hard-leaved stellate
Lanceolate or hard-leaved stellate

The healing properties of woodlice

Woodlouse has pronounced anti-inflammatory, hypotensive (aimed at lowering blood pressure), antianginal properties; moderate choleretic and diuretic.

As an antianginal agent, stellate medium increases blood flow to the heart, while simultaneously reducing its oxygen demand, which is extremely necessary for the prevention or relief (relief) of angina attacks. This property is based on the coronary dilating and antihypoxic effects of starlet due to the presence of flavonoids in combination with ascorbic acid and vitamin E.

Woodlice, or average starwort
Woodlice, or average starwort

The use of woodlice in medicine

In medicine, woodlice, or medium starweed, is used raw, in the form of an infusion and decoction.

Fresh grass woodlice is used to treat chronic liver diseases, cholelithiasis and urolithiasis, and inflammatory diseases of the bronchi and lungs. The infusion prepared from it is prescribed for the treatment of hypertensive heart disease, especially in the initial stage, with ischemic disease. Inflamed eyes are washed with plant juice. The broth is drunk with aching bones and coughing.

Wood lice are used for therapeutic and preventive baths. It is good to add nettle, chamomile, leaves of mountain ash, black currant, viburnum, birch, burdock and other herbs to such baths, due to which the baths have a hygienic and restorative effect on the skin metabolism.

Dressings made of steamed herbs or with a decoction are recommended externally for rheumatism, radiculitis, wounds and acne.

Infusion

1 tbsp. a spoonful of raw materials is poured with 1 glass of boiling water, insisted for 30 minutes, filtered through 2-3 layers of gauze, squeezed out and brought to the original volume. Take 1/3 cup 3 times daily before meals.

Decoction

2 tbsp. spoons of raw materials are poured with 1 glass of hot water, boiled in a water bath for 30-40 minutes, filtered hot and the volume is brought to the original.

The nutritional value

In the diet, they use fresh starwort herb, from which cabbage soup, mashed potatoes, seasonings, salads and pie fillings are prepared.

In its raw form, starlet is best used in salads, combining it with watercress, young dandelion and radish.

We wish you good health!

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