Dicotyledonous nettle - Urtica dioica. Nettle family - Urticaceae.
I avoided flowers,
I thought them unnecessary marvels,
I looked for those places where the nettles
where the nettles were a wall of impenetrable strength.
Burned with green fire,
Cut her thorny legs.
Unusually colored tortillas,
We burned ourselves and ate them...
В. Sergin
The grass nettle dicotyledonous is best known as a weed that grows near dwellings, in vegetable gardens and abandoned croplands. But the primary, natural habitats of nettle daudomna plant are damp elm and black-alder forests, floodplains of southern and western rivers. There, the grass nettle dicotyledonous forms a dense ground tier. Along with it grow such moisture-loving grasses as labaznik elm, understory, reedgrass, reedgrass, and cordgrass. It is also found in the grass layer of wet willow and oak-black-alder forests, along the shores of water bodies, ravines, and gullies. The range of the plant nettle dicotyledonous in its natural habitats is Eurasian, but as a weed nettle is already cosmopolitan.
The herb nettle dicotyledonous is a perennial plant. It begins to grow from rhizomes in the first warm days (already at 6-7 ° C), and then quickly gains strength, forming dense, dark-green thickets. The height of the tetrahedral stems of the dicotyledonous nettle plant reaches 1.5 м. The stalk and especially the leaves of the dicotyledonous nettle are densely covered with stinging hairs. At the slightest touch, these fragile hairs break - and they release a caustic sap consisting mainly of formic acid. Formic acid and burns the skin. Even the plant's generic name, nettle dicot, comes from the Latin igege, meaning "to burn." Dried or salted nettles, on the other hand, are quite harmless. Nettles are often called stinging nettle, stinging, zhigalka.
The flowering of the plant nettle dicotyledonous nettle lasts for a long time: from May to September. Its axillary earrings are composed of numerous green florets; and a light pollen flies from the slightest breeze, pollinating the female flowers of the nettle. Seeds of nettle dicotyledonous wilt a lot, and their maturation does not depend on the weather and occurs even at frosts.
Nettle dicotyledonous has a lot of useful properties, among them medicinal. Its leaves are very rich in vitamins B, E, K and PP, but especially a lot of vitamin C (up to 0.266 %). In the raw material of nettle dicotyledonous (leaves and young stems) there are proteins, starch, sugars, glycoside urticine, essential oil, gum, tannins, wax, alkaloids, flavonoids, pantothenic and formic acids, salts of iron, calcium, copper, manganese, boron, titanium, nickel.
As a medicinal plant nettle dicotyledonous was already known to the ancient Slavs. During the excavation of one of the settlements, dated 510. B.C. э.The remains of many medicinal plants, including nettles, have been found. In scientific medicine, preparations of nettle dicot are prescribed for anemia, anemia, atherosclerosis, some diseases of the liver and biliary tract. They are successfully used in metabolic disorders, rheumatism, asthma, as an anti-fever and anti-cancer agent, even as a tonic. Consuming them increases blood clotting; they also act as antihelminthics. Infusions, extracts and especially fresh juice of nettle dicot - multivitamin and tonic. Dry extract of nettle dicot is part of the drug allochol. Nettle leaves of dicotyledonous nettle include in the blends of many medicinal teas: vitamin, stomach, laxative. In one of the manuals on pharmacotherapy nettle dicot is placed among the plants whose substances affect tissue metabolism.
What only advice did not give folk medicine on the use of nettles: for the treatment of furunculosis, kidney, migraine, diabetes, gout, dysentery, malaria, bronchitis and neuroses. Fresh nettle herb was rubbed on sore places in rheumatism and ascites. Use the herb nettle dicotyledonous and to strengthen hair, and in cosmetics. A mixture of nettles with honey or sugar is considered useful for heart disease, whooping cough, and colds. In ancient herbalists have and such recommendations: nettle seeds, boiled in wine, use for kidney stones, dry leaves of nettle dicotyledonous, mixed with black bread, take diarrhea. And in the medieval Tibetan cultural monument "Jude-shi" wrote: "...Buttercup, nettle seeds and onions will aid in the digestion of vegetables."
But most of all, the herb nettle dicot is beloved as a nutritional vitamin herb. It appears when there are no vegetables yet, and so it is harvested and cooked even in modern times. In the Caucasus it is salted and used as a seasoning for bread and meat, or eat the shoots pounded raw into a mush and seasoned with vinegar, vegetable oil, salt and pepper. Nettle bilobed is popular as a soup seasoning; it is used to make green botviny, make salads. In general, nettles have been considered an edible plant since prehistoric times, when people were engaged only in gathering. "When the soup, whatever it is, is ready and you can carry it to the table, you should throw a pile of fresh washed nettle grass into the boiling pot. And as soon as the boiling in the pot, subdued for a few minutes by cool nettles, resumes, remove the pot from the fire; pour into plates. Spring, May, healing and nutritious food is ready to go. The nettle grass remains bright green in the plate as well; it seems even brighter than it grew on the ground. She is like a living person, only she does not "complain" (V. Soloukhin).
Equally popular is the herb nettle dicotyledonous as a fodder plant. It is high in protein and vitamins, which saves animals from avitaminosis. Chickens also eat it well, even increasing their egg production.
The spinning properties of the dicotyledonous nettle are now forgotten, but before the spread of cotton, it was regarded as a legitimate supplier of fiber. In this capacity it was already known in the 10th century.when its fabric was used to sew sails, and later to make canvas and ropes. The Ostyaks of the Nadym region, for example, considered nettle to be the main fiber plant. They cut nettles in the fall and knitted them into sheaves, then dried them in the sun, pounded them with a pestle and only then spun them; the threads were boiled in lye and dried in the frost.
There are other useful properties of nettles: nettle roots are used to make yellow dye, leaves - green, and the delicate inflorescences can be used to make tea. Its seeds are fed to poultry and even made into a delicious oil. Known nettle grass bilaterally and as a phytoncide plant: wrapped with its leaves fish or meat for a long time do not spoil even without cooling.
The simplest way to prepare the infusion of nettle dicot is as follows: fresh or dry nettle leaves (at the rate of a tablespoon per glass of water) pour boiling water and leave for an hour. Then strain and pour a tablespoon 3-4 times a day before meals. The same infusion can also be used to strengthen the hair by rubbing it into the skin after washing the scalp.
I picked nettles
And I put the nettles on the bouquet!
And, oh, miracle! - The green, powerful essence of the nettle illuminated the flowers.
Shaded all the tenderness of her neighbor's forget-me-not,
Showed all the weakness of the crimson silent carnation,
Emphasized all the delicacy, all the pinkness of the cancerous cervix.
В. Soloukhin.
