The healing properties of the familiar tree are whole. Useful properties of trees

Benefit and harm money tree are of interest to many, because to meet this indoor flower can be found on almost every window sill. It is interesting to consider what properties are inherent in the plant, and what benefits it brings.

What does a money tree look like?

It is easy to identify the plant - it has characteristic rounded leaves with a fleshy structure and dense smooth green skin. The leaves vaguely resemble coins - which is the reason for the main name of the plant. The fat woman is a succulent, over time it grows a thick and massive woody stem.

Popular beliefs say that the fat woman attracts money and wealth to the house. However, it is more interesting to understand the very real properties of the plant - and to understand what the benefits of a houseplant are - a money tree.

The benefits of the money tree for humans

The leaves of the plant contain flavonoids and phytoncides. Therefore, the health benefits of the money tree are manifested even if it just stands on the windowsill. The plant purifies the air, eliminates the pathogenic bacteria that live in it - sleeping in a room where a fat woman grows is always easy and pleasant.

The presence of a money tree in the house increases efficiency and mood, the inhabitants of the house are much less likely to suffer from seasonal colds and viral infections. Studying the benefits and harms of a money tree in an apartment, it remains to be concluded that the effect of the plant is basically beneficial - unless a person has a pronounced allergy.

Healing and medicinal properties of the money tree

The use of the money tree in medicine is that the processed leaves of the tree are used to treat the following ailments:

• hemorrhoids;
• varicose veins;
• angina and dental diseases;
• runny nose, cough and cold;
• herpes;
• nail fungus;
• cystitis and inflammatory diseases of the genitourinary system;
• joint diseases.

The fat woman not only creates a favorable microclimate in the apartment, but also benefits when used externally. The beneficial properties of the plant juice relieve inflammation and promote faster healing of infected wounds, alleviate pain symptoms in a wide range of diseases, and eliminate itching.

When taken orally, the juice of the leaves of the money tree in small doses helps to improve the functioning of the stomach and intestines, removes internal inflammation in cystitis. A houseplant will be very useful during a cold - infusions from the leaves can be used to gargle a sore throat or instill a healing agent in the nose.

Important! The health benefits of the fat woman do not become less even due to arsenic, which is present in small amounts in the composition of the leaves. The useful juice of the plant and the preparations prepared from it are consumed in such small doses that the dangerous compound does no harm.

Traditional medicine recipes with a fat woman

For some ailments, the indoor tree is used especially often. It is useful to learn the basic recipes in order to apply the fleshy leaves correctly and without harm to the body.

Treatment of hemorrhoids

For cracks in the anus or hemorrhoids homemade ointment will be extremely useful. Fresh juice squeezed from the fleshy leaves of a small tree is added to ordinary petroleum jelly, soaked in a swab and injected into the anus.

Cold drops

With nasal congestion, you can make useful homemade drops based on fat woman juice. To do this, the juice is diluted with water (there should be twice as much water), drawn into a pipette and instilled 1 drop into each nostril hourly.

With a long runny nose, which threatens to turn into a chronic one, you can do washings. To do this, the juice squeezed from 5 leaves of the tree must be mixed with 3 large spoons of water - and thoroughly rinse the nose three times a day.

From varicose veins

To deal with varicose veins veins, you can prepare a useful tincture of alcohol. To do this, 6 leaves of the money tree are placed in a small glass container and poured with a glass of alcohol or vodka. The remedy is insisted in the dark for 14 - 20 days, and then applied externally - they lubricate and gently rub the affected areas.

With angina and toothache

Useful fat woman juice can be used to gargle your throat and mouth for colds and dental ailments. To do this, the juice of 10 leaves is diluted in a glass of warm clean water and a rinse is used 3 or 4 times a day.

For the treatment of joints

The properties of the leaves of the money tree relieve inflammation and reduce pain. With rheumatism or arthritis, bruises and sprains, compresses can be done. A few green leaves of a fat woman are crushed to obtain pulp, applied to the diseased area, covered with a cloth or cotton pad and fixed with a bandage for 2 hours. You can make such useful compresses up to 3 times a day.

For nail fungus

You can get rid of the fungus with the help of home remedies - the beneficial properties of the money tree will have a pronounced effect in the fight against an unpleasant ailment. Treatment is carried out as follows:

• pre-legs or fingers are steamed in hot water with the addition of soap or soda to soften the nails;
• then, with the help of scissors or a blade, the dead layers are removed from the nail - very carefully so as not to harm the tissues;
• the leaves of the money tree, carefully peeled from the top layer of the skin, are applied with pulp to the affected nail and fixed with a bandage or plaster.

The compress is left overnight, and removed in the morning, the nails are steamed again and the diseased areas are lubricated with pharmaceutical ointment from the fungus.

With cystitis and diseases of the genitourinary system

Since the money tree effectively fights inflammatory processes and infections, ailments can be treated with the help of its properties. Bladder and cystitis. A few leaves of a fat woman are poured with boiling water, kept for an hour, and then they drink in the amount of 1 large spoon an hour before meals - in the morning and in the evening.

Advice! you need to continue treatment for at least 10 days, but it is also not recommended to take the infusion longer - if the dosage is exceeded, the fat woman harms the body, not benefits.

From herpes on the lips

Herpes, or "cold" on the lips, is a very unpleasant disease that the vast majority of people periodically suffer from. You can quickly cure herpes with the help of the beneficial properties of the money tree.

All that is needed is to grind a few leaves manually or with a blender, squeeze pure juice through gauze and lubricate inflammation on the lips with it several times a day. Herpes will pass in a few days, and the skin will quickly restore a healthy state.

To eliminate itching from an insect bite

The properties of the money tree are very useful in summer period, because they help well against mosquito bites. Itchy places must be lubricated with juice 6 times a day - the fat girl will eliminate discomfort and relieve a slight swelling at the site of the bite.

Treatment of burns, wounds and bruises

The antiseptic properties of the fat woman make it a good helper in the fight against wounds, burns and bruises. The leaves are crushed to the state of gruel, applied to gauze, bandage or cotton pad, and then applied to the affected area and fixed on top. You need to keep a useful compress for 4 hours, after which the bandage is changed.

The use of the money tree in cosmetology

The money tree is valued not only for the enormous benefits of the fat woman for the home and for its healing properties. The possibilities of the money tree are used for body care. From the pulp of the leaves and the juice of the fat woman, you can make homemade masks and lotions for washing, as well as take care of the condition of the hair.

Hair conditioner

The properties of the fat woman have a positive effect on the hair - they contribute to faster growth, strengthen the hair follicles, give the curls extra shine and volume. For weakened hair prone to falling out, it is recommended to use a conditioner based on money tree leaves.

It is very simple to prepare a useful remedy - approximately 200 g of fresh leaves are carefully crushed, then poured with a liter of boiling water and left to infuse for an hour. Strained warm infusion rinse hair after washing. It is best to do the procedure for 2 to 3 weeks every few days - then the benefits will appear quickly. The valuable properties of the fat woman will help the hair and eliminate the harm caused by poor ecology and lack of vitamins.

Face masks

The benefit of the money tree for facial skin is that its properties have a cleansing, rejuvenating and soothing effect on the skin, and mitigate daily environmental damage. A popular mask that helps well against acne, acne and all kinds of inflammation of the epidermis.

• A large fresh leaf is plucked from a fat woman, washed, broken or cut in half so that liquid stands out.
• The place of the break is carefully lubricated with all foci of inflammation and areas of acne rash.
• The agent is left for complete absorption.

The procedure should be carried out several times a day, then after a couple of days the inflammation will pass, leaving behind only clean skin.

You can also prepare a useful mask for oily skin - it will dry the epidermis a little.

• A few leaves of the money tree are washed, dried, then crushed into gruel for abundant juice secretion.
• A teaspoon of pulp is mixed with beaten egg white and a teaspoon of ground oatmeal.
• The mixture is stirred until thick uniformity and evenly distributed over the skin.
• After a quarter of an hour, the mask is washed off with warm water.

Harm of a fat woman and contraindications

The benefits and harms of a money tree for a person are inextricably linked with each other - there are certain contraindications to the use of a fat woman. Namely:

• it is impossible to use medicinal products from a fat woman for medicinal purposes if you are allergic to a money tree;
• it is not recommended to use a fat woman for medicinal purposes during pregnancy and lactation - harm can be not only to the mother, but also to the fetus;
• money tree infusions should not be offered to children up to 16 years old - a fat girl can harm even teenagers.

Any useful products prepared from the leaves of the fat woman should not be consumed in too large quantities or for many days in a row. This leads to poisoning, the harm of which is expressed in the occurrence of diarrhea, vomiting and fever.

A distinctive feature of the fat woman is the presence of a certain amount of arsenic in the leaves of the plant. In the smallest doses, this substance is not dangerous to health, but in high concentrations, of course, it is harmful. In no case is it recommended to chew whole leaves for the sake of treatment - they can only be consumed in processed form, otherwise arsenic will enter the body in significant volumes.

Treatment with a money tree at home should last no more than 2 weeks in a row - in order to avoid the accumulation of dangerous arsenic compounds in the body.

Conclusion

The benefits and harms of the money tree depend on the competent and reasonable use of the leaves of the plant. If you follow proven recipes and do not violate the dosage, then the fat woman will become a source of valuable raw materials for home remedies.

Forests occupy more than half of the territory of our country and play a huge role in various sectors of the national economy. In the vast expanses of Siberia and the Caucasus, in Central Asia and Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in the Crimea and the Baltic republics you can find many amazing woody plants. Man put a lot of work into the study of this wonderful gift of nature, but the more secrets he learned, the more unresolved questions arose before him. We still do not know what can explain, for example, the unusually long life of a tree. Indeed, plants that were born even when a person led a cave lifestyle, long before the reign of the first dynasties of the pharaohs and the construction of the pyramid of Cheops, have survived to this day.

Not so long ago, scientists believed that the giant conifers from the west coast were the oldest. North America- sequoias (mammoth tree), reaching 150 meters in height, a huge thickness of the trunk and an age of 3-4 thousand years. However, later the experts were forced to admit their mistake, because in North Queensland they discovered a tree from the class of cycads - macrosamia, similar in appearance to palm trees, which has been living for 12 millennia. It is not striking in its size and rises above the ground by only six meters.

In the Canary Islands, dragon trees grow, whose age reaches 6 thousand years. Their peers are the mighty baobabs - hermit trees that cannot stand the presence of other vegetation, as well as the thorny conical pines of California, accidentally discovered in 1843 by the expedition of John Fremont, and then again ten years later by Captain Gunnison. One of these patriarchs, who was over 4600 years old, was named Methuselah. According to biblical tradition, Methuselah is the most an old man on the ground.

In our country, there are many tree centenarians that can live up to two thousand years or more. These include oak, plane tree, oriental cypress (in Central Asia it is called plane tree). For example, in Komsomolabad, at the foot of the Karategin Range, there is a huge plane tree, under the crown of which there is a teahouse, a dining room and various utility rooms. The juniper growing on the rocks of the Shugnan Range with a trunk of half a meter thick reaches the age of 1200 years. There are many respectable "old men" among the familiar lindens, Siberian cedars, sugar maples, walnut. Many of these trees are of great benefit to human health and are indispensable helpers for people in white coats. In this chapter, we will focus on the most notable and interesting of them.

PINE. Among the evergreen conifers, it is impossible not to pay attention to the majestic giants, admiring their beauty and vitality. More than 108 million hectares are occupied in our country pine forests. These trees grow on sandy, podzolic, stony soils, are found on peat bogs, rocks, limestone and chalk outcrops.

Pine... Who has not seen this beauty with a mighty trunk shimmering with pure gold and a curly crown, who has not had to enjoy the invigorating aroma of a pine forest? The majestic pine was loved by Tolstoy and Mussorgsky, Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky, Pushkin and Repin, Yesenin and Shishkin. Often, under the cool shade of a mighty tree on Mikhailova Hill near the village of Prokhorovka in Ukraine, N.V. Gogol came. The great artists Levitan and Vasnetsov left us an indelible impression of the pictures of Russian nature. For our people, the pine has long been a symbol of the native land - generous, rich, beautiful.

From natural cracks in the bark or from small artificial cuts, a precious light yellow, transparent resin-resin slowly flows down, which is hunted in the forest by uplifters - people of a difficult but fascinating profession. Many millions of years ago, the oleoresin, abundantly flowing from pine trees broken during spring windfalls, solidified into a solid mass, which everyone now knows as amber.

There are many legends and tales about amber. One of the legends says that at the bottom of the deep and restless Baltic Sea, Princess Jurate lived in a beautiful palace made of honey stone. One day the beautiful princess heard a cheerful song, which was sung over the roof of the palace by a young fisherman Kastytis, who was fishing. At first sight, Jurate fell in love with a young man and persuaded him to settle in her castle. Upon learning that Jurate had violated the law of the sea, the formidable god Perkunas struck the fisherman with a lightning strike, and Jurate chained him to the wall of the ruined palace with a thick chain. And every time the sea calms down and Jurate sees the body of her lover, she cries bitterly and the sea throws her tears ashore in the form of pieces of amber.

Amber has been known to man since time immemorial, and for many centuries ancient scientists, naturalists and philosophers tried to establish the origin of this amazing substance, called it sea, combustible, radiant or solar stone. Some argued that amber is formed from the secretions of wild animals or whales, others said that it is a concentrate of sunlight that is thrown out by the sea or floats up from silt heated by the sun, others considered amber to be oil that hardened in water, a waste product of forest ants, etc. n. Mythological plots were also used to explain the origin of amber. So, Ovid in his "Metamorphoses" claimed that amber was formed from the tears of the daughters of the sun god Helios and his wife Clementine, turned by their parents into poplars in order to mourn the death of their brother Phaethon forever.

The true guess about the origin of amber was expressed by the ancient Romans. But later, European celebrities began to ascribe a mineral nature to amber, and only M.V. Lomonosov in his work "On the layers of the earth" restored the truth and proved that amber is a fossil product formed due to the release of resin from coniferous trees. Defending his opinion, the great Russian scientist wrote: "... as for amber, one can be quite surprised that some learned people, great names and merits, they recognized it as a real mineral, despite the so many small reptiles contained in it that are found in the forests, below the many sheets that are visible inside amber. "Indeed, the leaves and flowers of plants, mosses, ferns, spiders, beetles and bees, butterflies, flies, mosquitoes, mosquitoes, bird feathers and hair of large animals stuck to amber resin in ancient forests and these inclusions tell us about the flora and fauna of bygone eras.

For more than six millennia, amber has served man. Already in antiquity, it had a high value and was kept together with other treasures.

In the Roman Empire, various decorations and household items were made from amber, goblets for wine, spindles, rings, beads, amber was burned in temples for incense. The ancient Greeks greatly appreciated the transparency and warm color of the "electron" (as they called amber) and stubbornly tried to figure out why a piece of amber rubbed with wool attracts straws, like a magnet - iron objects. And although scientists later discovered that not only amber has this property, William Gilbert in 1600 immortalized the sunstone in the name that he gave to the then unknown mighty force - "electricity".

In our time, the color richness of amber, a huge number of tones and shades of solar stone, its amazing beauty have opened up wide opportunities for the creativity of wonderful craftsmen who continue the traditions of famous craftsmen who at different times created unforgettable compositions that are stored in many of the world's largest museums.

In the collections of the Hermitage in Leningrad and the Armory in Moscow, one can see an amber head of a cane presented to Catherine II by Emperor Frederick the Great in 1765, a lamp made of a large piece of amber on which a bronze sea lion rests, an amber baton of Patriarch Filaret (1632) and an amber the staff of Patriarch Nikon (1658), an amber mug presented in 1648 to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich by the Lithuanian ambassador.

The so-called Amber Cabinet, which was presented to Peter I by Emperor Friedrich Wilhelm I in 1716, gained worldwide fame. For many years, the cabinet, numbering more than 200 unique items, was located in the Winter Palace, and in 1755 it was moved to Tsarskoye Selo to the Catherine Palace, where the Italian masters Martelli and Rastrelli turned it into the Amber Room with an area of ​​​​55 square meters, all the walls of which were lined with mosaics from pieces of yellowish-brown polished amber of various shapes and sizes. For about 200 years, this room has been the pride of the world's decorative arts. But during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis stole the Amber Room. In 1942, she was exhibited to a narrow circle of people in the Royal Castle in Königsberg, and then disappeared without a trace and her fate is still unknown.

Nowadays, amber is increasingly used in the production of insulators, varnishes, paints, for the manufacture of optical instruments, special medical utensils and instruments used in blood transfusion, since amber prevents the destruction of red blood cells - erythrocytes. From amber, succinic acid is obtained, which is used for the production of vitamin D and other medicinal preparations, as well as leather substitutes, dyes, substances that make up soaps, toothpastes, etc. Succinic acid is a good biological stimulant. Studies by Soviet scientists have shown that pre-sowing treatment of seeds with succinic acid leads to a noticeable increase in yield.

Amber was very popular in traditional medicine. It was used by Galen, Avicenna, Al-Razi, Biruni and other scientists of antiquity to extract foreign objects that got into the eyes. In China, amber beads were worn to protect oneself from disease. In the old days in Russian houses, an amber necklace was put on for the same purpose. More than a dozen recipes, which included amber, were in service with folk healers who knew how to use the "sun stone" for many ailments.

However, the use of amber was limited by its relatively low production. For a long time it was collected along the coast of the Baltic Sea, where amber placers were vigorously eroded during strong storms. As a rule, this laborious work did not bring tangible results, although there are cases when the amount of amber thrown ashore by the sea reached significant values. So, in the area of ​​the village of Yantarny in 1862, about two tons of amber were thrown out per day, and in 1914, 870 kilograms of solar stone were collected in the same area per day.

For many years, amber was mined in various primitive ways. So, with the help of sharp peaks, an amber-bearing layer was loosened from boats, lying at a certain depth in the sea, while amber floated up and was caught with special nets. Sometimes amber was scooped from the water with a special device - a net attached to a horseshoe-shaped arc installed between two boats; when they moved, its end with the net furrowed the bottom of the sea and the floating pieces of amber became entangled in the cells of the net.

At present, industrial development of amber in its deposits has been established. The largest deposits of amber in the world are in the vicinity of the aforementioned village of Yantarny in the Kaliningrad region, where it lies in the so-called "blue earth" on an area of ​​about 300 square kilometers. It is believed that the amber reserves here reach 280 thousand tons, and the annual production is estimated at several hundred tons. At the same time, the size of the encountered pieces of amber ranges from barely noticeable to the eye to blocks weighing several kilograms.

Our people love amber, consider it their national wealth. This love and respect for the solar stone was beautifully reflected in her poems by the Lithuanian poetess Salomea Neris:

My little land is like a golden drop of thick amber. It shines, blooming in patterns, It pours in songs, joyfully grief.

Gum, the amount of which from one pine tree can vary significantly (from a few drops to one or more liters), is a real chemical laboratory in which various resin alcohols and acids, esters and terpenes and other products are produced.

After being freed from water and foreign impurities, a substance known as ordinary turpentine is obtained from the resin, which is used to make turpentine, varnishes, and rosin.

The miraculous properties of turpentine have been known for many centuries. Now this colorless transparent liquid with a characteristic odor is widely used in medical practice in ointments for rubbing with neuralgia, rheumatism, gout, colds, and also for inhalation with putrefactive bronchitis. Many substances are obtained from turpentine, which in turn are used in medicine. Suffice it to recall that it is a raw material for the synthesis of a valuable drug terpinhydrate and for the production of an excellent stimulant of cardiac and respiratory activity - camphor. When, during the years of World War II, due to the destruction by the enemy of camphor basil plantations - the plant from which camphor was usually obtained, a shortage of this drug began to be felt, turpentine, isolated from pine resin, completely covered the country's needs for this irreplaceable drug.

A variety of fragrant substances are prepared from turpentine, which have a wonderful smell of roses, lily of the valley, violet, bergamot, lavender, linden, which successfully replace the expensive essential oils of these plants and are used in perfumery.

With prolonged dry distillation of pine trunks and branches, a dark product with an unpleasant burnt odor is formed. This is tar, which has a disinfectant and locally irritating effect. It is used externally for some skin diseases and for wound healing. The coal remaining after the complete combustion of wood is used in technology to absorb liquids and gases, as well as in the form of carbolene tablets for gastrointestinal disorders. Pine charcoal is also used as an adsorbent in case of poisoning with potent substances.

Some types of pine contain a huge amount of oil in their fruits. The Siberian pine, or cedar, is especially distinguished in this respect. Siberians, on the other hand, often lovingly call cedar a miracle tree or a breadfruit tree, and pine nuts are golden. Indeed, nut kernels are rich in oil, proteins, carbohydrates. Only one cedar tree gives for its long life (cedar grows up to 800 years, reaching 40 meters in height and 1.5 in diameter) about 200 kilograms of nuts, and in the forests of Western Siberia their harvest annually exceeds a million tons! It is estimated that from such a quantity of nuts one could get as much oil as 5 million cows would give, and this oil is superior in quality to animal fats. In Siberian folk herbal medicine, nuts are used in the treatment of nervous disorders, pulmonary tuberculosis, and kidney diseases.

In early spring, when fragrant resinous pine buds have not yet begun to grow and have not had time to bloom, pickers come out into the forests. The technique of collecting buds is very simple and comes down to cutting them off with a sharp knife in whole "crowns", sometimes together with a small part of the tops of shoots of young trees. The raw materials are dried in attics (but not in the oven, as the resin melts and evaporates) and stored in dry, well-ventilated rooms in plywood boxes on racks or undercarriages.

Kidneys are another wonderful gift that a pine gives a person. They contain a large amount of resin, essential oil, bitter and tannins, vitamins, mineral salts. A decoction is obtained from pine buds, which is used in medicine as a means of facilitating breathing, they are introduced into the composition of some expectorant, diuretic and anti-inflammatory herbal preparations.

Until recently, pine needles were considered forestry waste. But it turned out that this waste is almost more valuable than the wood itself. Concentrates of vitamins C and K, carotene are produced from pine needles; it can be used to make a fortified drink. To taste this fragrant drink, you need to boil 100 grams of chopped pine needles with water and insist for 1-2 hours. You can take this infusion half a glass 3-4 times a day, adding sugar to taste.

Pine perfectly serves not only man. Our feathered friends extract useful substances from its cones, squirrels and chipmunks, moose and other inhabitants of the forest feast on pine seeds. Even fish willingly eat pollen, which during the flowering period covers water bodies with a thin film. Coniferous-vitamin flour from pine "paws" contains more vitamins and microelements than hay, and when added to livestock feed, it increases live weight gain and improves the taste of milk and meat of farm animals.

Breeding scientists protect and expand plantings of young trees, develop original methods of grafting Siberian cedars on their European relatives, creating valuable breeds. And the grateful forest giants reciprocate the man, generously give him their wealth.

OAK. These mighty deciduous trees, reaching 40-50 meters in height and 2 meters in trunk diameter, usually live 400-500 years. But there are giants in the forests of our country, whose age is approaching a millennium. There are about two hundred giant oaks in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus, and in the village of Verkhnyaya Khortitsa, near Zaporozhye, a fifteen-stemmed patriarch grows, under whose spreading crown the Cossacks of the troops of Bogdan Khmelnitsky rested. The oldest tree in Europe is considered to be a two-thousand-year-old oak growing in Lithuania, in the town of Stelmuzh, and the total area of ​​oak forests in the USSR - bracken, sorrel, bilberry, snoot, nettle, fern and others - reaches 9 million hectares and every year more and more new ones are populated with oaks. space.

The ancient Romans and Greeks, Slavs and other peoples considered oak to be one of the holy trees, sacrifices were made under it, important state decisions were made.

Oak owes its wide distribution primarily to wood, which has exceptionally high strength, hardness, durability and a beautiful pattern, which allows it to be used for a variety of purposes. No less popular is the dark gray oak bark with numerous longitudinal cracks - an old folk remedy that has been proven for centuries. A decoction of the bark has long been used for gargling with stomatitis and other inflammatory diseases in the oral cavity, for the treatment of dysentery, diarrhea, burns, skin diseases, in gynecological practice, for washing festering wounds, stopping bleeding, with excessive sweating.

The bark is harvested in early spring during the period of sap flow, when it is most rich in tannins and other valuable compounds. For this purpose, shoots of young branches and trunks, not exceeding ten centimeters in diameter, are used. The raw materials are cut into small pieces and dried well under a canopy to avoid spoilage in the rain.

Oak leaves contain a large amount of phytoncides that have a detrimental effect on pathogens and therefore they are sometimes brewed as tea and drunk for infectious diseases. In the same way, the Gauls, which we spoke about above, are also used. Only the range of their use is wider: for tuberculosis, skin and nervous diseases, and scurvy.

Oak acorns are also a valuable folk remedy. Lightly toasted, they are mixed with equal portions of also roasted barley, rye, oats and wheat, a little wild chicory and dandelion roots are added for flavor, and coffee is prepared, which is consumed, as usual, with milk and sugar. Store acorn coffee in boxes with parchment paper or in glass sealed containers for four to five years.

Oak grows very slowly. It begins to bear fruit only after 30-40 years. But Soviet breeders have learned to develop new forms that are characterized by rapid growth, resistance to adverse conditions, beautiful crown color and slender trunk. Chemists, biologists, physicians, who are working hard on the problem of creating effective medicinal preparations from this tree, do not rest on their laurels. And in gratitude for their hard work, the forest giants reveal their secrets to scientists and serve the cause of strengthening human health.

LARCH. Larch forests stretch from west to east, from Lake Onega to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, covering an area of ​​about 270 million hectares. Five countries such as France can freely settle on the territory occupied by these straight, like columns, trees reaching a height of 50 meters, and larch reserves in the USSR amount to a huge figure - more than 28 million cubic meters.

The taiga queen, the Siberian oak, the tree of eternity is called larch. These names reflect the pride of the Russian people with these beautiful and mighty giants.

Larch wood is a unique gift of nature. However, we only recently, and even then far from fully, began to use it, although our distant ancestors knew how to make mills, bridges, and dams from this tree, which were operated for more than one century. And the Troyan Bridge on the Danube, built by the Romans from larch logs, has been preserved for 1800 years.

Does larch have any medicinal value? There are no preparations from this plant in scientific medicine yet, however, scientists have managed to obtain Venetian turpentine, gum, cellulose from wood, and from these products, in turn, isolate turpentine and vegetable fats, vitamins and phytoncides, antibiotics and enzymes, tannins and dyes , acids and esters that have a certain effect on the human body.

Until recently, despite the economical use of larch wood, a lot of waste remained during its processing - branches, trimmings, wood chips, which were not used and were simply burned. at the Irkutsk Institute organic chemistry The Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences managed to obtain a new substance from larch waste by special chemical treatment - dihydroquercetin, which in an animal experiment had the ability to strengthen blood vessels, activate the liver, and eliminate vitamin deficiency in the body. Employees of the Kharkov Research Chemical-Pharmaceutical Institute calculated that DHQ (this is how this compound began to be called for short) is contained in larch waste up to 8 percent and therefore it seems appropriate to obtain it on an industrial scale.

SPRUCE. Since ancient times, our people have treated spruce with great respect. Without this tree, dressed up in sparkling gold and silver garlands, hung with bright lights and beautiful toys, the most cheerful holiday is unthinkable - New Year. The remarkable qualities of evergreen beauties allow them to be widely used in various sectors of the national economy. This is the main species in the USSR, which provides wood for construction, the production of high-quality paper, artificial fibers, and wool. Turpentine and rosin, resin and glycerin, plastics and silk, and many other valuable products are obtained from it. Well-resonant spruce wood is used to make balalaikas, guitars, mandolins and other musical instruments. Many of the 45 species of spruce known to botanists are decorative and serve as the best decoration for gardens and parks. Like sentries, there are blue spruces at the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin and along the memorial Kremlin wall.

Spruce is the oldest tree in our forest. Its origin dates back to the Cretaceous period. mesozoic era. And already at the dawn of mankind, spruce was used as a healing plant. Many recipes have been preserved, which include various products from spruce. Its needles, rich in essential oils, vitamin C, tannins, mineral salts and phytoncides, were used by traditional medicine as a diuretic, choleretic, diaphoretic and antiscorbutic agent. For colds, a decoction of young shoots or cones of spruce in milk helps well, and for abrasions, abscesses, ulcers, cuts and other skin lesions, a mixture of equal parts of spruce resin, wax, honey and sunflower oil is used, which is heated over low heat and used as an ointment or in the form of a patch. With a strong cough, folk herbalists recommend melting spruce resin and yellow wax, cool, put pieces of the mixture on hot coals and inhale the resulting smoke.

Resinous spruce buds, collected in the same way as pine buds, in early spring, are used to prepare a decoction, which is used as a disinfectant for rhinitis, tonsillitis, bronchial asthma and other respiratory diseases. Spruce buds are part of some expectorant herbal preparations that help with inflammation of the bronchi, rheumatism, tuberculosis and other diseases. And in recent years, scientists have learned how to prepare concentrates of vitamins C and K from spruce needles, which, in turn, can be part of various drugs.

BEECH. In the mountains of Western Ukraine, in the Crimea and the Caucasus, on hundreds of thousands of hectares, there are beech forests - mighty, straight-stemmed trees reaching 50 meters in height and 2 meters thick. They have a smooth, light gray bark, a dense crown almost impervious to sunlight, with ovate-oval leaves and separate-hollow flowers that appear in the axils of the lower leaves at the same time as they bloom. Out of 10 known species beech in our country grows 3: oriental, forest and large-leaved. Among the inhabitants of beech thickets there are centenarians who are 4-5 centuries old.

The forestry and operational importance of the beech is great. Its wood - light, non-core, with a yellowish-red tint, beautiful pattern - although inferior in strength to oak and chestnut, is widely used in housing construction. It is used in the manufacture of musical instruments, furniture (including the well-known "Viennese" furniture), parquet, plywood, machine parts, barrel containers for storing perishable products, roofing shingles, sleepers for decorating the cabins of ships.

Beech firewood is used for fuel, and a valuable substance, potash, is obtained from the ashes. Beech wood processing products include acetone, methyl alcohol and other organic solvents, xylitol, which replaces sugar in the diet of diabetics, tar and creosote, which have an antimicrobial effect. In folk medicine, creosote is used both externally for the treatment of skin diseases, and internally in combination with sugar or honey, masking its unpleasant odor, with putrefactive processes in the lungs and bronchi, against tapeworms, with abnormal fermentation phenomena in the stomach and intestines.

Another wealth of the tree is its trihedral, shiny brown nutlets. In size, they are only slightly larger than sunflower seeds (100 nuts weigh about 20 grams). Under favorable conditions, one hectare of beech forest can produce several million nuts. This is a whole pantry of nutrients - fats, carbohydrates, organic acids, vitamins. Not inferior in taste to pine nuts, beech nuts are a favorite delicacy of wild boars, squirrels, bears, badgers and other animals. Beech leaves are rich in vitamin K and tannins and are used in folk medicine to stop internal bleeding, as well as to treat gastrointestinal diseases.

Of particular value is a light yellow oil from beech fruits. It is successfully used in baking, confectionery and canning industries, in perfumery and medicine, various branches of technology, and the cake remaining after oil production is given as protein feed to dairy cattle, pigs and poultry.

Currently, scientists and forestry specialists are developing rational methods aimed at increasing the strength of beech wood.

ASPEN. On an area that occupies several tens of millions of hectares, yielding among hardwoods only to birch, aspen grows almost everywhere in the forest zone of our country - a slender tall tree with a greenish-gray bark and a sparse crown, painted in autumn in carmine, minium and lemon yellow colors.

For a long time, the people did not like aspen, they called it the sworn tree, trembling, whispering tree and even the Judas tree. The last name comes from an ancient belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself on an aspen, and she, trying to shake off the memory of the traitor, constantly shakes her leaves. In fact, the thrill aspen leaves due to the fact that their petioles, flattened in the upper part, are very mobile and set in motion at the slightest breath of wind. Knowing this feature of the aspen, true connoisseurs of nature respect this indispensable inhabitant of our forests. The famous Russian writer S. T. Aksakov wrote: “Unnoticed by anyone, the quivering aspen is beautiful and noticeable only in autumn: its early fading leaves are covered with gold and crimson and, brightly different from the greenery of other trees, it gives a lot of charm and variety to the forest during autumn leaf fall.

According to one of the legends, a dispute took place between the trees, who brings more benefits to people. And pine, and larch, and ash, and fir, and cedar, and birch vied with each other to brag about their merits, and only the aspen had nothing to say. Time has dispelled the myth of the uselessness of aspen. Was it not she who, in the old days, gave twigs to the peasants for weaving baskets and helped the fire victims to build up after the village fires? Is it not her bitter bark that hares and forest giants - elk - eat with pleasure? Is it not from its wood that the world-famous Khokhloma products are made, and numerous factories produce millions of boxes of matches? No wonder the aspen is called a fire diva.

Today's matches are produced for a wide variety of needs. In addition to domestic use, special-purpose matches are produced: wind matches - which do not go out in the wind, used in polar wintering conditions, on expeditions, fishing and hunting; signal - burning with green, red, blue, yellow fire, with a flame halo of almost half a meter; fuse matches, which give a high combustion temperature, etc. Now the country's enterprises produce 22 million conditional boxes of 1000 boxes of matches each year.

With the development of chemistry, aspen began to be valued even more, as it served as a raw material for the production of fatty acids, vitamins, chlorophyll, and especially furfural, an oily liquid widely used in the production of durable fabrics, rubber, plastics, pesticides, fertilizers, varnishes and paints.

Despite the fact that aspen has been infamous for centuries, it has been widely used in folk medicine. The buds and leaves of the tree, containing essential oils, bitterness, organic acids and glycosides, have a diuretic, diaphoretic, astringent, anti-inflammatory, analgesic and wound healing effect. A decoction of the kidneys or an alcoholic tincture of the bark of branches with leaves was taken for fever, colds, acute and chronic inflammation of the bladder, hemorrhoids, rheumatism, gout. Dried and powdered aspen buds mixed with butter to the consistency of an ointment, they treated burns, wounds and ulcers, lichen and warts were smeared with tree sap, rubbed with salt deposits in the joints.

Aspen is also used in the production of fodder yeast. Added to the aspen diet of farm animals and birds, they help to accelerate their reproduction and increase productivity.

Unfortunately, aspen wood is quickly affected by pests and therefore trees usually do not live long. True, recently scientists have discovered a giant form of aspen with increased vitality, adaptability to adverse environmental conditions. In our country, giant aspen forests are open in the Kostroma and Kursk regions, near Leningrad and in other areas. The introduction of gigantic aspens into seed farms as valuable parental forms will significantly increase the stock of commercial wood and obtain a huge economic effect.

Aspen is becoming more and more firmly integrated into our everyday life and has sent its brothers all over the world - bay leaf and balsamic poplar, desert and fragrant, deltoid and silver, black and white ...

Poplar wood - light, white, soft, well processed, almost does not crack when dried. Poplar provides both construction timber and material for packaging, serves as a source of raw materials for paper and rayon. Chrysin, a flavonoid with a wonderful golden color, has been isolated from sticky poplar buds and is used as a permanent dye. An extensive set of biologically active compounds gives decoctions, tinctures, ointments and other preparations from the kidneys the ability to have anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, analgesic and antiseptic effects. Baths prepared with an infusion of black poplar leaves are popularly used as a sedative for diathesis in children, and water infusion The kidneys of this plant are recommended for articular rheumatism.

In recent years, the possibility of using various types of poplars for medicinal purposes has interested scientists from different countries, and now preparations from these trees are being studied in depth.

WILLOW WHITE. Long ago, when the waters of the global flood receded, the earth was covered with lush vegetation and many trees ascended high on the slopes of mountains, along rivers and lakes. But the most enormous among them was the sacred willow, planted by the gods on the banks of the Euphrates. Once the goddess Inanna, walking along the river bank, saw a willow and admired it. Suddenly a storm broke out and just about the mighty waves could tear out the tree and carry it into the ocean. The goddess took pity on the willow, carefully dug up the roots of the tree and transferred it to the beautiful city of Uruk, where she planted it in her temple garden. Years have passed. Willow became even more beautiful, but one day a misfortune happened to her. A terrible snake dug a lair in the roots of the tree, and an eagle built a nest in the branches. Inanna wept bitterly under the shade of her beloved willow, and, hearing her moans, the goddess's brother, the radiant Utu, sent his faithful warrior Gilgamesh to her aid. The brave hero killed the snake, drove away the eagle, cut down the sacred willow and gave its trunk to Inanna, who ordered it to be made into a magnificent chair for her temple. She presented the remains of the trunk to Gilgamesh as a reward for his feat, and the carpenter made magical emblems of royal power from them - a magic drum and a thin flexible wand, which allowed the hero long years reign in the city of Uruk and approach the gods by the strength of his power.

Such is the legend about the willow, created by the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia.

There are not many trees on earth that would have such an abundance of relatives as the willow. Carl Linnaeus established 29 species of willows, the scientist Wildenov already 116 species, the biologist Koch described 182 species, and the botanist Gandozhe 1600 species. In the book "Willows of the USSR" A. K. Skvortsov gave an accurate description of 170 species of willows that exist in our country. Here and rakita - a ten-meter tree with pointed leaves, and red willow - reddish, with thin shiny leaves, and Russian willow - black, blooming later than other willows.

Looks good weeping willow near a pond, when the flexible branches of a tree with long green leaves lean towards the water itself. No less good are decorative species, which are bred in squares and parks.

On river floodplains, along the banks of rivers and streams, in forests and gardens, in wetlands, in ravines and along ditches, one of our people's favorite plants grows - white willow, or, as it is often called, willow. This is a large tree or tall shrub with dark gray bark, ash gray lanceolate, ovate or round leaves and flowers collected in short catkins. In early spring, when there is still snow in the forest, willow flowers bloom and attract many bees with their delicate aroma, collecting a plentiful nectar and pollen bribe. Quite often, winged workers receive from willows several kilograms of golden yellow, straw-colored, fragrant and sugary honey, which has high palatability.

In many regions of Russia, peasants willingly used willow branches for weaving baskets, extracted paint from them, planted young trees to strengthen banks and dams, and original healers knew how to use willow in the treatment of various diseases. For medicinal purposes, the bark was usually used, containing a whole range of biologically active compounds - flavones, tannins, glycosides, vitamins.

In folk medicine, the bark of young trees, collected in April - May and well dried in ventilated rooms, is used as a decoction. To do this, 10-15 grams of finely chopped dry bark is boiled in a glass of water for 15-20 minutes, filtered, cooled and drunk one to two tablespoons three times a day before meals as a good astringent for various disorders of the stomach and intestines, as an antipyretic in rheumatic pains, in diseases of the spleen, liver and gallbladder, and instead of quinine in attacks of malaria. Together with anise fruits, coltsfoot leaves, linden flowers and raspberry fruits, willow bark is part of the diaphoretic teas that doctors prescribe to drink hot at night.

A decoction of willow bark is also used for external use, for example, for eczema, as well as for gargling with inflammation and diseases of the upper respiratory tract, for wetting ulcers and tumors on the body.

Willow is also popular with cosmetologists. In combination with burdock roots, willow bark is used as a decoction for washing the head with dandruff, skin itching, and hair loss.

Not only the bark, but also other parts of the willow have healing properties. So, its fresh leaves are sometimes applied to calluses to soften, and male inflorescences in the form of an alcohol tincture or water decoction help with neuroses, disorders of the cardiovascular system, and inflammatory diseases. However, all willow preparations can cause adverse effects if used incorrectly and therefore should be used with caution.

LINDEN. One often sees how a person admires the beautiful, how he wants to "stop the moment" in order to absorb the beauty that struck him. Such a feeling also appears when the linden blossoms and a wonderful, incomparable aroma spreads far around. The entire wide crown of this tree seems to be filled with bees collecting sweet nectar. According to the observations of beekeepers, one linden tree, this queen of melliferous plants, produces up to 16 kilograms of nectar, and linden honey, ripened in a hive and known as "lipitsa", which is obtained from a hectare of flowering lindens, is colorless, fragrant, excellent for taste, knows no equal among table honeys and has healing properties.

Linden has long been loved by the people, it has been admired by poets and writers. S. T. Aksakov wrote: “A spreading, white-trunked, light green, cheerful birch is good, but even better is a slender, curly, round-leaved, sweet-smelling during color, not bright, but soft green linden.”

Veliko economic importance lindens. Its wood is characterized by lightness, resistance to environmental factors, relative elasticity, adhesion and tensile strength. It is well cut, smoothly planed, easily processed, polished, impregnated with dyes and antiseptics, very resistant to warping, cracking, capable of preserving canned foods without giving them an extraneous smell and taste. Linden wood is widely used in the manufacture of drawing boards, barrel containers, household utensils, carpentry and turning products. In the old days, craftsmen secretly carved seals from linden wood instead of state ones, from where the well-known expression "linden" - a fake - came from. Mats, ropes, bast and many other household items were made from linden bast.

Linden is one of the oldest folk remedies. Dried flowers are widely used in everyday life in the form of a hot water decoction as a diaphoretic for colds, whooping cough, neuralgia, measles, parotitis, cholecystitis. Oak bark, sage leaves, mallow and elder flowers, raspberries, coltsfoot leaves, willow bark and other healing plants are often added to linden teas. Tea is prepared by brewing two tablespoons of dried herbs with two glasses of water for 15-20 minutes, after which it is filtered and drunk before going to bed.

Linden flowers are used by the people for the preparation of emollient poultices for articular rheumatism and gout, for rinsing, aromatizing baths. To this day, linden bark is used to treat erysipelas. Young linden leaves are used as food in some countries. They are recommended for the preparation of fortified infusions and a nutritious salad rich in vitamin C.

The best time to collect linden flowers is the end of June, when most of them have blossomed, and the rest are in the stage of opening buds. Usually this period lasts about two weeks, but much depends on a complex of phenological factors. There are years when the flowering of linden is delayed and it begins to smell sweet only at the end of July. Flowers should be collected after they have dried from dew and rain. The collected inflorescences are dried in the open air, protected from direct sunlight, or in special dryers.

The fruits of the honey tree are spherical or slightly elongated nuts with four or five longitudinal, slightly visible ribs, contain more than 30 percent of valuable nutritious oil, which tastes like almond oil. According to its physical properties, it belongs to the best grades of table oils. An important advantage of it is its good resistance to air access. After squeezing the oil, highly nutritious cakes are obtained, which are used for feeding livestock.

Linden is an excellent ornamental tree for decorating parks, squares, streets, gardens, ponds. It well strengthens the soil in ravines and is used to create shelterbelts, improves the water absorption capacity of the soil.

16 species of linden grow in our country: large-leaved, or summer, ordinary small-leaved, white or silver, Caucasian, Crimean, Siberian, Amur, Manchurian, American, or black, red, etc. They are distinguished by enviable longevity. However, large specimens are now becoming increasingly rare. In the interests of nature protection and the development of beekeeping, it is necessary to secure the commercial use of linden up to 80 years in the bee habitat. Every effort must be made to protect this wonderful tree.

Linden is the main honey plant in our country, but the domestic flora has up to 1000 species of entomophilous (pollinated by bees) plants, of which about 200 are of some importance for beekeeping. According to the habitat, all honey plants are conditionally combined into separate groups, the main of which are the honey plants of forests and parks (linden, maple, willow, honey locust, mountain ash, honeysuckle, lingonberry, raspberry, viburnum, heather, cow parsnip, angelica, strawberry, narrow-leaved fireweed, goldenrod nettle and others), fruit and berry honey plants (apple, cherry, currant, gooseberry, plum and others), agricultural nectar-bearing field and fodder crop rotations (buckwheat, sunflower, spring rapeseed, vetch, coriander, camelina, clover, sweet clover, rank sowing, white mustard and others), grassland honey plants (coltsfoot, colza, burdock, thistle, sage, cornflower, mint, oregano, meadow geranium and others), garden and gourd honey plants (watermelon, melon, chicory, pumpkin , cucumbers and others), honey plants specially sown for bees (phacelia, borage, Turkish melissa and others).

According to experts, small-leaved linden, under favorable conditions, produces 500-1000 kilograms of linden per hectare, which significantly exceeds the honey productivity of other honey plants. So, 350-400 kilograms of honey are obtained from a hectare of fireweed, plakun loosestrife gives 300-350 kilograms, white sweet clover and heather - 200-300, maple, willow, snowberry, mouse peas, red clover - up to 200, meadow cornflower, spring rapeseed, currant, oregano - about 100 kilograms. Many plants give only maintenance nectar when the nectar is only enough to feed the adult bees and rearing the brood.

In years with dry and hot summers, when the nectar is poorly produced by the honey flora, the bees bring the so-called honeydew honey to the hive. Its source is a sweet sticky liquid (pad) secreted by aphids, mealybugs, lightbearers, jumping grass lice, moth-like psyllids and other insects living on the foliage of plants. Freshly harvested honeydew honey is light amber, sweet and pleasant in taste. Its best varieties can be used in baking and confectionery production. But in general, honeydew honey is of low quality, since honeydew is heavily clogged with dust and infected with various bacteria and fungi. Therefore, beekeepers do not allow good-quality honey to be mixed with honeydew in the hive.

In nature, there is also a product collected by bees in the absence of nectar. It is secreted from the leaves of plants and is called honeydew. Honey dew appears mainly with sharp fluctuations in temperature during the day and, in its chemical composition, differs significantly from flower nectar.

LILAC. This tall shrub with smooth bark and heart-shaped or ovate dark green leaves got its name from Greek word"syrink s" - a pipe, because in the old days shepherds carved pipes for smoking and flutes that emit melodic sounds from its wood. In Russia, it was also called "chenille" from the word "blue", since this color determines one of the colors of lilac inflorescences.

From the lilac create living flowering hedges and alleys, its leaves are excellent "orderlies". They retain three times more dust than the crown of poplar, linden and other ornamental species.

Currently, more than a thousand varieties of lilac are known. Soviet breeders, headed by the Moscow flower grower L. A. Kolesnikov, received about 200 promising forms, differing in the color of the flower bud, the shape, size and compactness of the inflorescences.

In 1952, L. A. Kolesnikov was awarded the title of laureate of the State Prize of the USSR, and in 1973 the International Society of Lilac Breeders awarded him the Golden Branch of Lilac medal. This is the first medal that has been issued international body for the creation of lilac varieties.

What colors do lilac flowers have: boiled white, cream, pink, blue, purple, light yellow! Even the outer and inner side of the corolla of a flower can be of a contrasting color, sometimes the edge of the petal is decorated with a edging of a different color.

Each flower of the famous domestic variety Beauty of Moscow in its shape resembles a miniature rose with many petals. While the flower has not yet opened, the bud is a rich pink tone. But then the petals begin to unfold, and the color changes. The flower is silvery, becomes mother-of-pearl.

Powerful inflorescences with non-double light purple flowers are called "hydrangea". In appearance, they resemble huge half-meter panicles of garden hydrangea. This lilac attracts bees that collect life-giving nectar from the flowers.

Iran is considered the birthplace of lilac, where it was cultivated 1200 years earlier than in Europe. But it is more likely that this plant came to us from China, where they knew about the shrub, which has wonderful healing properties, as early as the 11th-12th centuries.

The wonderful smell of the essential oil contained in the flowers has long attracted the attention of perfumers around the world. They introduce it into the composition of the most expensive perfumes and cosmetic preparations. In Russian folk medicine, an infusion of fresh lilac leaves was used for fever and malaria, the flowers were brewed as a tea, which they drank for colds, whooping cough, kidney stones, pulmonary tuberculosis, often in combination with yarrow, tansy and linden flowers.

Among the indigenous peoples of the Far East, especially among the Nanais, lilac inflorescences are used as a tonic. The flowers contain glycosides, flavonoids, resins, essential oil and other substances. Infusion of flowers quickly relieves fatigue and gives vigor.

Lilac is harvested during its mass flowering. Lilac inflorescences are dried in the shade or in a well-ventilated area and stored in a dry place.

The chemical composition of lilac has not yet been studied enough. The glycoside syringin was isolated from the bark of the common lilac, and tannins and some mineral elements were found in the leaves. Successful completion of research by scientists will make it possible to include lilac in the arsenal of herbal medicines used in medicine.

WHITE ACACIA. Residents of many areas middle lane of our country cannot imagine their cities and villages without white acacia. This is a tall tree with a branched trunk and a spreading sparse crown of regular leaves, which at the time of flowering are almost hidden in abundant snow-white caps of flowers, grows in parks and gardens, in courtyards and streets, along roadsides, slopes of beams and in river valleys. It is one of the first plants brought to Europe from the New World.

A little over three hundred years ago, the French botanist V. Robin, who visited America and was fascinated by the beauty of the blooming white acacia, took it to France and planted it in the Paris Botanical Gardens, where the tree grows to this day and is protected as a relic. Carl Linnaeus, in honor of the scientist, gave the genus to which the white acacia belongs, the scientific name of Robinia. Later, botanists began to call the white locust also a false acacia, in order to distinguish it from the numerous species of the genus of true acacias, which grow mainly in Africa, Australia and other tropical countries. Some of these species serve as a source of stable dyes, as well as gum arabic, or gum arabic, a mucus secreted from cracks in the bark, which finds various uses in technology and medicine.

White locust is considered to be one of the main honey plants. In windy weather, the aroma of its flowers spreads far, to which the flight of bees and other insects does not stop. A strong bee family can collect up to 8 kilograms of honey from one tree - one of the best flower honeys. Acacia honey is so light and transparent that an inexperienced eye cannot distinguish whether there is honey in the cells or not. Due to the large amount of sugar, honey crystallizes very slowly and remains in a liquid state for a long time.

Robinia has long been considered a healing plant in folk medicine. Medicinal raw materials are flowers containing robinin glycoside and essential oil, highly valued by perfumers. Preparations from flowers are used for diseases of the kidneys and bladder, often in combination with bearberry leaves, licorice root, anise fruits, tansy flowers, celandine grass.

White acacia flowers are harvested at the beginning of flowering, tearing off whole inflorescences with their hands or cutting off with knives. Dry in attics or under sheds with good ventilation, spreading a thin layer on paper or cloth and turning frequently.

ROWAN. In short autumn days, when everything remains on the trees less leaves and they cover the inhospitable yellowing grass with an ever thicker layer, heavy tassels of mountain ash with selected large berries look especially beautiful, blazing with a red crimson. The specific Latin name that Linnaeus gave to this low tree with smooth gray bark and openwork leaves is "aucuparia", which literally means "to catch birds", since, according to an old custom, rowan fruits were used as bait for catching birds. Rowan berries are a gift to thrushes, tits, starlings, waxwings and other representatives of the overwintered feathered brotherhood. Often, so many birds flock to the fieldfare for a feast that the branches cannot withstand the live load and ripe clusters fall to the ground, where they become the prey of forest voles, hedgehogs and other animals. Our tart berry is loved by moose, and the "owner of the forest" bear, and many other representatives of the domestic fauna.

During its long life (the tree lives up to 150 years), the mountain ash gives a huge amount of fruit. In the most widespread species - mountain ash, the fruits are small, bright red, and some varieties, for example, the world-famous Nevezhinskaya mountain ash, are distinguished by very large and frost-resistant fruits and high yields. They say that once the industrialist Smirnov found a sweet and sour mountain ash near the village of Nevezhina in the Vladimir region, and so that his competitors would not know about it, he called it Nezhinskaya (after a small town in the Chernihiv region).

Michurin hybrids are magnificent, such as Pomegranate, Likernaya, Michurinskaya dessert and others, as well as some types of mountain ash growing in the Far East of our country. Among them, the rowan elderberry attracts attention, since its leaves somewhat resemble elderberry leaves.

Under favorable conditions, up to 60 kilograms of red bitter-sour fruits are harvested from one mountain ash tree per year. With the onset of frost, the amount of sugar in the fruits increases significantly, they lose their astringency, become sweet and palatable. It was then that the housewives begin to demonstrate their skills: they prepare various delicacies from mountain ash - marshmallow, marmalade, compotes, jams, syrups, tinctures, etc.

Since ancient times in Russia, mountain ash has been highly respected, the people have composed sincere songs about the forest beauty. Original healers called "thin mountain ash" one of the main healing plants. Indeed, berries contain a large number of various organic acids, tannins, bitter and pectin substances, essential and fatty oils, vitamins A, B, C, K and other compounds valuable for the human body. Due to the presence of such a unique natural complex, rowan fruits help well with low acidity of gastric juice, liver and heart diseases. Aqueous decoctions of fruits are used as a diuretic and hemostatic agent.

In recent decades, chokeberry, or chokeberry, grown in many regions of our country, has become increasingly famous as a valuable food and medicinal crop.

Aronia fruits - spherical, black-purple, shiny berries with eight brown seeds interspersed in dark pulp ripen in late August - early September and have a pleasant sour-sweet taste due to the presence of sugar and organic acids in them. Found in the fruits of chokeberry are also vitamins B 1, B 2, C, PP, carotene, folic acid, minerals. But the main wealth of the plant, its main value as a reliable drug are various bio-flavonoids - substances with a polyphenolic type of structure that have the activity of vitamin P (this vitamin makes the walls of blood capillaries more elastic and therefore it is called "vitamin of youth"). Vitamin P stimulates the processes of regeneration of muscle and bone tissue, activates the activity of the thyroid gland, adrenal glands and other endocrine glands, increases the tone of the body, relieves mental and physical fatigue, has a protective effect in bacterial and viral diseases, and radiation injuries.

Aronia berries stimulate appetite, increase the acidity and digestive power of gastric juice and therefore are especially useful for people suffering from gastritis with low acidity. Observations of clinicians indicate good results achieved by prescribing chokeberry berries to patients with hypertension, atherosclerosis, as well as in diseases accompanied by impaired capillary permeability.

At the same time, it should be remembered that the fruits of chokeberry should not be consumed by patients suffering from peptic ulcer, and in a very limited amount it is possible to include them in the diet of people with a tendency to thrombosis, thrombophlebitis and with an increased prothrombin index of blood. Usually doctors prescribe 100 grams of fresh berries or 50 grams of juice three times a day.

WALNUT. In the mountains of Central Asia, in the Caucasus and in many other places in the southern part of our country, there are groves of tall, slender, powerful, reaching two meters in girth, walnut trees with ash-gray bark and a beautiful spherical crown, almost not letting in the rays of the sun, whose age often reaches several centuries. It is erroneously believed that in Russia the fruits of these trees appeared from Greece, which is why they are called walnuts, although in this country the walnut did not grow wild and its homeland is Asia Minor.

For many centuries, the walnut has been very popular among the peoples of different countries, and the remote similarity of the kernel of this nut with the human brain has given rise to numerous legends about this plant. So, the Greek philosopher Plato quite seriously argued that nuts have the ability to think, can move independently and escape from people by jumping from branch to branch.

The economic importance of these giants is great. Nut shells are used for the manufacture of linoleum and roofing felt, grinding and emery stones. Rare in beauty wood is used for the manufacture of elegant furniture, rifle butts, in various carved and turned art products, and in decorative and finishing works. Walnut "burl" is especially highly valued - basal nodules formed from colonies of dormant buds and sometimes reaching a weight of up to a ton. They go to the production of special plywood - veneer with an intricate patterned pattern, which is pasted over top-quality furniture, caskets and other decorative items. A kilogram of burl on the international market is equal in value to a kilogram of silver, and only the most skilled craftsmen are trusted to work with it.

At the end of summer, fruits grow on the trees, enclosed in a green pericarp, which then turns black, cracks and mature nuts spill onto the grass. In a year, under favorable conditions, one tree can produce 200-300 kilograms of nuts - an excellent nutritious product containing a large amount of easily digestible fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins B, C, E, phytoncides, salts of potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and other minerals. In terms of the amount of vitamin C, unripe walnut fruits are many times superior to such well-known vitamin-bearing fruits as blackcurrant and citrus fruits. Only two dozen nuts are enough to satisfy a person's daily need for fats. No wonder I. V. Michurin called the walnut "the bread of the future." And the predictions of the great reformer of nature came true. Now nut kernels are part of various food products - sweets, halva, cakes, ice cream. Very tasty nuts cooked with honey - kozinaki. Churchkhela is popular among southerners - nuts strung on a string, which are dipped several times in a special mushy mass of grapes and flour. After each immersion, the churchkhela thickens, then it is dried and a nutritious sweet "sausage" is obtained. Nuts are introduced into the diet of athletes and astronauts, they are recommended for weakened people, as they relieve fatigue, restore strength and vigor. Experts say that nuts are 3 times more nutritious than wheat bread, potatoes - 7 times, cow's milk - 10 times, apples - 12-13 times!

Since ancient times, nuts have been used to treat various diseases. The fruits were considered a means of preventing poisoning by the strongest poisons, and it was recommended to eat two nuts in the morning on an empty stomach with two figs and salt. 100 grams of nuts with honey were eaten for a month and a half with hypertension, and nut milk normalized intestinal activity, improving its peristalsis.

But the main medicinal raw material is still not the nuts themselves, but the leaves of the tree, containing the alkaloid juglandin, the dye juglon, which has a bactericidal effect, carotene, tannins, essential oil and mineral salts. In folk medicine, walnut leaves are used orally in decoctions against childhood eczema and rickets, for inflammation and pain in the stomach and intestines, for boils, goiter, tuberculosis, hemorrhoids, gout, hemoptysis, and also as an antihelminthic. Usually, a tablespoon of crushed dry leaves is poured with a glass of boiling water, insisted for 15-20 minutes, filtered and drunk a quarter cup 3-4 times a day. The leaves also help well when used externally for rinsing the mouth with sore throats or as compresses for certain skin diseases, festering wounds, and mastitis in nursing mothers. In homeopathic practice, the fruit peel of nuts is used as a uterine remedy.

An infusion of 50-80 grams of freshly cut leaves per 300 grams of sunflower oil, aged at room temperature for 15-20 days, is recommended for diseases of the liver and gastrointestinal tract, as well as for the treatment of chronic and infected wounds and ulcers. Sometimes the leaves of walnut trees are used as an aid in diabetes mellitus, as they help to improve the absorption of glucose by the body.

Many old recipes use of walnuts by different peoples. So, with frequent urination, the nut was roasted in smoldering coals and taken before going to bed with water, and in case of bronchial asthma, the nut kernels mixed with apricot seeds and ginger were kneaded with honey, made into balls and taken before going to bed, thoroughly chewed and washed down with ginseng decoction.

The walnut leaf is harvested in early summer, when it has essential oil glands and a balsamic scent. The leaf segments are plucked from the central petiole and used fresh, as they turn black and lose their valuable substances during slow drying.

DOGWOOD. In early spring, when the birch buds are just beginning to swell, the dense crowns of dogwood, a low tree with brown-gray bark, are already completely covered with golden yellow delicate flowers. Here, for a sweet feast, shaggy pharmacists - bees and other insects rush to get the first bribe of nectar and pollen.

Since ancient times, dogwood has been considered a useful plant. Its wood, one of the strongest in the plant world, was widely used for the manufacture of weapons and musical instruments, which did not succumb to decay for centuries. No wonder Homer armed his Odysseus with a dogwood arrow, and the mythical Romulus, the founder of Rome, drew the borders of the future "eternal city" with a dogwood spear.

The bark and leaves of dogwood, which grows in abundance in the Crimea, the Ukraine and the Caucasus and has been cultivated in many parts of the middle zone of our country, contain a large amount of tannins and are therefore used for leather dressing and the production of stable dyes. But, of course, the main wealth of dogwood is its ruby, dark red or light yellow oblong fruits with a strong bone, saturated with various sugars, organic acids, phytoncides and other valuable substances. According to the content of vitamin C, dogwood fruits surpass even such a well-known vitamin-bearing plant as blackcurrant, and are only slightly inferior to the champion among vitamin plants - wild rose. A plate filled ripe fruits dogwood can decorate any table, and jam, jam, compotes, jelly, marmalade, juices and many other products made from dogwood berries have an unusual taste and aroma. In addition, the fruits of dogwood are healing. They are widely used in folk medicine, as an astringent for disorders of the stomach and intestines, as well as hypovitaminosis, metabolic disorders, colds, anemia, some skin lesions, as an excellent antipyretic for malaria.

As a rule, the most common are infusions or decoctions of dogwood fruits, which are prepared from the dried berries of the plant.

Dogwood is propagated by seeds, root offspring, layering or cuttings. It is often bred for decorative purposes, as well as to fix the soil along cliffs and screes. Especially suitable for these purposes is red dogwood, or svidina, which grows in the middle and central black earth zone of our country, which is also distinguished by high honey content.

BARBERRY. This is a strongly branched berry shrub with ovate, bunched light green leaves and small bell-shaped yellowish flowers in drooping inflorescences, growing along river banks and in ravines, on the edges of forests and among shrubs, the ancient Babylonians and Hindus knew. The inscriptions on the clay tablets of the "Agiurbanipal Library" dating back to 650 years BC mention barberry berries as a "blood purifier".

In Russia, barberry berries have been prepared for several centuries delicious jam, jellies, juices, syrups, used as a pleasant seasoning for various meat and fish dishes. And craftsmen-herbalists used them as a choleretic, diuretic and laxative for scurvy, loss of appetite and other diseases.

Already in the middle of the 18th century, barberry began to be introduced into culture, and at the end of the last century I. V. Michurin became interested in this plant. The scientist managed to obtain a seedless form, which turned out to be quite large-fruited and early in fruiting. However, in subsequent years, interest in barberry culture began to noticeably decline, as it was found that a microscopic rust fungus often develops on the underside of the leaves of the shrub, the spores of which infect nearby cereals and forage grasses.

Currently, the barberry is again beginning to attract the attention of researchers, since substances have been found in various organs of the plant that have a beneficial effect on the human body. Among them are a number of alkaloids, with the main one being berberine, the ability of barberry preparations to have a stimulating effect on the muscles of the uterus, cause a decrease in blood pressure, increase the separation of bile, and increase the amplitude of heart contractions.

The domestic pharmaceutical industry has mastered the production of berberine sulfate in the form of tablets, which are used for these diseases on the advice of a doctor, and home-made decoction of barberry leaves and tincture of bark or roots are used to stop bleeding, reduce pain and inflammation in diseases of the gallbladder and liver . With inflammation of the gums and ulceration of the oral mucosa, rinsing with an infusion of barberry roots (a teaspoon of crushed raw materials in a glass of boiling water) helps well. Barberry preparations also have antipyretic, antimicrobial and antiseptic effects, they are popularly recommended for the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis (Borovsky's disease) and the visceral form of this disease (kala-azar).

Barberry benefits people almost all year round, since the bark and leaves are harvested in early spring during the period of juice movement, the root in late autumn, and the fruits in summer during the ripening period. Dried barberry raw materials are often prescribed in the form of pharmacy fees in combination with celandine grass, mint leaves, valerian root, serpentine rhizome, dill seeds and willow bark.

Attracts barberry and gardeners, as many of its species are decorative. A whole collection of barberries is collected in the Kaliningrad Botanical Garden: Amur - almost three meters high bush with thick shoots, planted with tripartite large needles; Thunberg - with coral berry beads; derezolistny - with beautifully curved shoots and strong dark glossy leaves.

The fruits and leaves of these species of barberry are also rich in valuable substances and are used in folk medicine for the same diseases as raw barberry.

HAZEL. The inhabitants of Ancient Rome and Greece grew hazelnuts - hazel, considered it sacred and believed that a branch of a walnut tree could indicate where treasures were buried, put out fires, stop floods, and protect against many diseases. Walnut was considered a symbol of life and immortality. Millennia have passed, and the love of peoples for this amazing plant has not only not faded away, but has become even stronger.

The specific scientific name of hazel - "avellana" comes from the name of the city of Avellino, which was the center of culture and trade in hazelnuts in Ancient Rome. Among several types of hazel growing in our country, the most common is the common hazel - a shrub reaching 7 meters in height, with rounded obovate leaves and almost spherical nuts, collected 5-6 pieces in seedlings. Hazel blooms much earlier than other plants, and tiny bright crimson stars of female inflorescences located on the tops of the buds are a sure sign of the awakening of nature and the onset of fine warm days.

Hazelnuts contain a diverse range of useful substances: up to 70 percent fat, about 20 percent proteins, almost 8 percent sugars, and in terms of their calorie content, they significantly exceed cereals, milk, potatoes, raisins, figs and other vegetables and berries. Nuts begin to ripen in late summer, and the collectors of these wonderful gifts of nature get great pleasure, perhaps no less than fishing or the "third hunt".

Nut kernels are very tasty raw, they are widely used in the confectionery industry. Nut oil, light yellow in color with a pleasant smell, reminiscent of almond or olive oil in taste, is used in cosmetics, diet food, as it is well absorbed by the body. It is also used by artists, engineers, chemists and many other professions.

You can even make milk and cream from hazelnuts. To do this, they are peeled, cut, soaked overnight, and then ground in a mortar with a small amount of water and the resulting "milk" is whipped to a homogeneous consistency and left in the refrigerator or cellar.

Nuts are not the only advantage of hazel. Its wood, flexible and durable, has long been used in furniture production, canes are made from it, baskets are woven, craftsmen carve various souvenirs. Hazel bark and puffs (nut wrappers) contain a lot of tannins. In the people they are sometimes used to treat diseases of the stomach and intestines, and they also prepare a decoction with which they wash their hair to make their hair darker.

Nuts are harvested when their cupules are easily separated, dried in the sun, scattered in a thin layer, for 14-20 days, and in cloudy weather - under a canopy or in dryers at a temperature of about 40 degrees. Sometimes hazel is dried in Russian ovens at 110 degrees, getting the so-called red-hot nuts. Immediately after the end of the furnace, on the hearth, cleaned of ash, nuts are poured in a thin layer and dried, stirring occasionally. When a strong aroma appears, the nuts are sprinkled with cold water. Rapid cooling makes the shell brittle, easily splitting. Then the nuts are dried in the wind.

ELDER BLACK. A tall shrub with grayish-brown bark, opposite leaves and yellowish-green small flowers collected in large corymbs, usually grows in coniferous and mixed forests, along river banks and slopes of ravines. In ancient times, it was believed that its fruits - blue-black-purple berries contribute to the prolongation of life and are sacred. In one of the old herbalists you can find such a curious recipe: “Gouge an elderberry cane from the lower end and put crushed wolf eyes there, and tongues from three green lizards, a dog’s heart, and three swallow hearts, add iron ore powder and cover with an iron knob, and this elderberry cane will protect on the way from all sorts of misfortunes and from the beasts of the forest and dashing people to protect. Now such recommendations can only make us smile, but in ancient times our ancestors believed in the power of elderberry and accurately followed the instructions given in the recipe.

In Russia, from time immemorial, samovars were polished with clusters of elderberries to a copper sheen, and berries were used to obtain paint. Flies, mosquitoes, moths and other insects were expelled from houses with bark from young twigs. A decoction of the flowers and fruits of the plant was popularly used as a diaphoretic, diuretic, anthelmintic and emetic, the bark was used for influenza, neurasthenia, pulmonary tuberculosis, pneumonia, bronchitis, headache and toothache. Powdered bark and roots were sprinkled on wounds, weeping ulcers and burns, relieved of "aching suffering" with rheumatism and gout, treated hemorrhoids, dislocations and fractures of bones.

Fragrant inflorescences of black elderberry are used in food in some countries. So, the British prepare a dessert dish according to this recipe: the whole inflorescence is dipped in egg white whipped to a stable foam, sprinkled with powdered sugar and baked in the oven. This airy dish is served with raspberry syrup at the table.

At present, elderberry has limited use in scientific medicine, although scientists have established the presence in its fruits and flowers of tannins, organic acids, a glycoside with a diaphoretic effect, vitamin P, and essential oil. Dried flowers are introduced into the composition of diaphoretic and diuretic preparations along with fennel fruits, anise and nettle grass, parsley root. Gargle with infusions of flowers for sore throats and stomatitis, fruit jelly has a slight laxative effect, and baths are made from a decoction of the bark and roots that help with erysipelas and patients suffering from polyarthritis. All preparations of elderberry should be used only as directed by a doctor.

HEATHER. In pine forests, on wetlands and on sandy soils throughout the European part of our country, the generous beauty of lilac-pink or purple heather flowers does not fade until late autumn - a relic evergreen sprawling shrub with trihedral sessile leaves. Heather blooms so abundantly that it seems as if the whole earth is covered with a motley coverlet, from which a unique aroma emanates.

Once upon a time, millions of years ago, heather thickets rose three to four meters above the ground. Now it is rare to see specimens of a plant above 50-70 centimeters, especially among the numerous decorative forms, the snow-white double flowers of which are widely used for landscaping our gardens, squares and parks.

But it still attracts heather of various insects with its sweet nectar. In terms of the amount of the “drink of the gods” produced by bees, heather could be classified as a first-class honey plant, since in a number of areas they receive 200 kilograms of honey per hectare of heather. But heather honey, sung by many poets and prose writers, although fragrant, is dark in color and even gives off bitterness.

They say that in ancient times the king of Scotland decided to find out the secret of a wonderful healing drink, which one of the tribes in the north of the country skillfully prepared from heather. The Scots passed through this land with fire and sword, but the freedom-loving people did not reveal their secret to the invaders and took it to the grave.

And I'm not afraid of a fire. Let me die with me My holy secret - My heather honey! -

the old mead maker proudly answers the tyrant king in R. Stevenson's famous ballad "Heather Honey" (translated by S. Ya. Marshak).

Not only honey, but heather itself has long been held in high esteem by herbalists. The aerial part of the plant, containing glycosides, enzymes, tannins, saponins, essential oil and other biologically active compounds, is used in folk medicine in the form of infusions and decoctions both inside and out for dysentery, rheumatism, gout, tuberculosis, diseases of the liver and kidneys. Heather grass is included, along with lemon balm leaves, lavender flowers, chicory root, wormwood and violet grass, in the composition of the pharmacy collection used for nervous excitement, neurasthenia, insomnia and other disorders of the nervous system. Such a collection is prepared by brewing one tablespoon of a mixture of the listed herbs with a glass of boiling water, and drinking as prescribed by a doctor for half a glass before bedtime.

Medicinal raw materials are the tops of heather stems with leaves and inflorescences, which are collected during the flowering period, air-dried under awnings and stored in a cool place.

POMEGRANATE. On the Black Sea coast, a poor fisherman and his wife lived in an old house. He always hospitably opened the doors to strangers who asked for shelter from bad weather. But the life of the old people was overshadowed by three daughters - vicious and very ugly, they constantly cursed their parents for their small stature and unsightly appearance. The middle daughter, Pomegranate, was especially zealous. And when the fisherman became completely unbearable, he prayed to heaven, began to ask him to take pity on him. Then the sky turned the Pomegranate into a tall, slender tree with pink flowers. But no one plucks or sniffs them, because they have no smell. This is one of the ancient legends about the pomegranate tree, the culture of which has been known for several millennia.

In the republics of Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Crimea and a number of other southern regions of our country, numerous varieties of pomegranate are grown, differing in color and size of fruits (there are fruits the size of a chicken egg and giant fruits, reaching a weight of 700-800 grams), having a sweet , sour or sweet and sour taste. Such wonderful varieties as Meles-shelli, Bala-Mursal, Shakhnar, Kazake-anar are known far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.

Each pomegranate tree produces annually several dozen, and sometimes two or three hundred fruits, which are usually harvested in late autumn in dry weather and stored in cool fruit storages for several months.

The nests between the membranous partitions of the pomegranate fruit are filled with numerous seeds (grains) tightly adjacent to each other, from which juice is squeezed out containing proteins, fats, carbohydrates, a large set of vitamins, citric acid, phytoncides and a number of other compounds. Pomegranate juice is an amazing gift of nature to man. This juice is used against scurvy and fever, to quench thirst, improve appetite. It increases the body's resistance to infectious diseases, has a tonic and tonic effect. In medicine of different peoples, pomegranate juice is used as a diuretic, choleretic, anti-inflammatory and antiseptic drink in the treatment of diseases of the liver, kidneys, stomach, intestines, etc.

The treatment of burns with pomegranate juice has become widespread. The area of ​​​​the burn is moistened with juice diluted with water and the affected area is sprinkled with powder from the dry pericarp of the fruit. A crust forms on the burned surface, under which healing proceeds quickly.

Fruit peel has no less valuable properties. Due to the high content of tannins, it is one of the best leather tanning agents, and is also used to make indelible paints - black, chestnut, blue. The alkaloids pseudo-peltierine, isopeltierine and others contained in the crust kill tapeworms in a few minutes. Therefore, a decoction of pomegranate peel has been used since time immemorial to remove worms. The decoction is prepared as follows: insist 40-50 grams of bark for several hours in two glasses of water, then boil until half of the liquid has evaporated, filter the rest and cool. The resulting broth the patient drinks in small portions for an hour on an empty stomach, and after 1-2 hours he takes a saline laxative. However, the use of this remedy requires caution, since pomegranate alkaloids can cause severe irritation of the gastrointestinal tract.

Leaves and flowers of pomegranate are not forgotten by traditional medicine. Of the former, tea is brewed, which helps with stomach and intestinal disorders, and the flowers in the form of poultices relieve pain from bruises and bone fractures.

JUNIPER. According to an ancient legend, the beautiful Cypress lived in the Crimea, she fell in love with a beautiful young man and the young people decided to get married. But they were poor, and in search of happiness the young man went on a long voyage. She waited a long time for her fiancé Cypress, every day she went out to a high coastal cliff and looked to see if a ship would appear in the sea. When the girl finally realized that she would not wait for her beloved, she raised her hands to the sky in grief, and so she remained standing forever, turning into a slender beautiful tree.

Perhaps popular rumor is mistaken, considering the land of ancient Taurida to be the birthplace of cypress, but now it is difficult to verify the correctness of this assumption, since the plant has been known since time immemorial in many countries of the Mediterranean, in India, and Central Asia. Cypresses have occupied vast territories on our planet and are represented by a wide variety of forms: dwarf, weeping, silvery, coniferous.

One of the many relatives of cypress - common juniper - evergreen shrub with a straight trunk, unlike its southern relative, it is more frost-resistant, more easily adapts to soils of different moisture content and therefore is found both in dry pine forests and in moist spruce forests, along rivers and lakes, on moss swamps and along mountain slopes, populating vast territories throughout the forest zone of the European part of the USSR, and in Siberia penetrating east to Yakutia.

The beauty of juniper was admired by many poets, scientists, and artists. I. E. Repin personally planted a juniper alley in his estate, which has survived to this day, being, as it were, a living monument at the grave of the great painter.

Unfortunately, now landscapers pay little attention to juniper plantings, although this shrub is an excellent orderly. For a day, one hectare of juniper evaporates almost 30 kilograms of phytoncides. This is quite enough to clear the air of a large city from pathogens.

In the second year of life, fleshy cones are formed on the branches of the juniper, which look like berries. These black fruits of the plant with a bluish bloom, referred to in everyday life and trade as juniper berries, are one of the oldest and most popular medicines. In the past, they were widely used both internally and externally as infusions, decoctions, extracts or powders for dropsy, malaria, tuberculosis, nervous disorders, rheumatism, gout, kidney and liver stones and other diseases. Raw berries were used for stomach and intestinal ulcers, to remove worms. It's believed that healing effect The fruits of the plant are due to the presence of an essential oil in them, which contains a large number of chemical compounds, but the composition of juniper berries has not yet been fully studied.

Currently, the use of juniper as a healing plant is mainly limited to the use of its berries as a diuretic. For this purpose, an infusion is prepared or special teas are made in which juniper berries are combined with horsetail grass, couch grass rhizome, licorice root, bearberry leaves, birch buds, parsley fruits, cornflower flowers. One tablespoon of a mixture of these herbs is brewed with a glass of boiling water, infused for half an hour, then cooled, filtered and taken in a tablespoon several times a day 15-20 minutes before meals. At the same time, doctors always warn of the need to be careful, because when taken orally in a large dose, the essential oil of berries can cause poisoning, accompanied by inflammation of the kidneys.

In the republics of Central Asia, thickets of tree-like junipers are often found, united under the common name juniper. When distilled with water vapor, the needles of this juniper relative obtain a clear oily liquid with a characteristic turpentine odor, which has a detrimental effect on the causative agents of many diseases, especially pyogenic cocci. A solution of this liquid in castor oil is successfully used in the treatment of sluggish wounds and ulcers in the form of tampons and dressings and is not inferior in its effectiveness to the well-known Vishnevsky ointment.

The essential oil obtained from the fruits of juniper is highly valued by perfumers. At present, pinene, cadinene, terpineol, terpinolene, sabilene, borneol, isoborneol, cedrol and other compounds have been found in it.

Raw materials are usually harvested in September - November, at the time of full ripening. To collect berries, they spread cloths on the ground and lightly tap the branches of the bush with a stick. Then the fruits are cleaned of impurities and dried in the air under a canopy. Well-dried is stored in a dry place for several years.

OLIVE TREE. One of the ancient Greek myths says that when a dispute arose between the goddess Athena and the formidable Poseidon, who should be the master of Attica, they decided that the winner would be the one who was able to do the greatest good deed. Poseidon hit the rock with his trident - and a transparent spring gushed out of the crack. Then Athena threw a spear at another rock and it instantly turned into an olive tree, a flowering tree, so beautiful that the council of the gods decided the dispute in favor of Athena.

Since ancient times, many peoples have been cultivating an olive tree, or olive, and in our country its culture is carried out along the Black Sea coast, in the Krasnodar Territory, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The largest plantation of these low trees with leathery gray-green leaves and small fragrant white flowers collected in complex brushes is located at the Akhali-Afoni state farm, near the city of Sukhumi, founded in 1879 and currently numbering tens of thousands of plants.

The main wealth of the olive is its fruits - black-violet oval-shaped drupes containing up to 70 percent of non-drying fatty oil in the pulp of the pericarp. The best kind of oil, known as olive or Provence, is obtained by weakly squeezing selected ripe fruits in the cold. It is almost odorless, has a pleasant taste, is well absorbed and is widely used in the fish canning industry, as well as in medicine as a solvent for the preparation of injectable solutions of camphor and other preparations, for oral administration in certain diseases of the liver and stomach, or for external use as rubbing and as part of cosmetic ointments, creams, lipsticks. Application Success olive oil is largely determined by the high content of vitamins A, B, C, proteins, carbohydrates and other compounds useful for the human body.

The oil extracted from the fruits after repeated pressing of selected olives, called "wood oil", is of lower quality and is used for technical purposes, in the production of soap and various lubricants. And the cake remaining after obtaining the oil is used to feed farm animals or for fertilizer.

In the world production of vegetable oils, the olive tree ranks seventh in terms of the amount of oil produced. The total production of olives and butter annually is more than one billion tons, and about 80 percent of this production falls on the share of European countries - Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Yugoslavia, Greece.

The fruits of the olive tree are also of nutritional value. For the population southern countries canned olives are one of the staple foods, since they are only slightly inferior to bread in terms of their calorie content and surpass rice. However, mature olives are inedible because they contain the bitter glycoside oleuropein. Therefore, before salting, they are processed by heating with alkali, which eliminates bitterness. The unripe fruits of the olive tree, grassy-green in color, known as "green olives", are used for canning, pickling and pickling without pre-treatment.

From foreign varieties of olives in our country, Ascolano, Sevillano, Santa Caterina have become widespread, and from domestic ones - Baku 17 and Baku 27.

The wood of the olive tree is hard and heavy and is used in turning and carpentry.

CHERRY. At present, it is difficult to establish exactly when the cultivation of cherries began. However, the first written mention of this amazing tree found in ancient documents dating back to the 4th century BC.

The Salerno Code of Health, written in the 14th century, says: "If you eat cherries, you will receive considerable benefits! They cleanse the stomach, and the core relieves stones; you will have good blood from the pulp of berries."

From time immemorial, cherry has pleased a person with beautiful flowering, filled the air with a delicate aroma and gave amazingly tasty fruits. People treated her with great love and care. Cherry was bred in the south, in the middle zone of the European part of our country, in Western Siberia, Central Asia and other regions.

For many years scientists have studied the healing properties of cherries. It turned out that fresh dark red fruits and dried tree sap collected in the middle of summer are medicinal raw materials. Traditional medicine also uses stalks, leaves and young shoots.

Cherry fruits contain a lot of sugar, in some varieties up to 21 percent. Large reserves were found in cherries and organic acids, pectins, vitamins, nitrogenous, tannins, coloring substances, coumarins, microelements. It is the presence of trace elements that improves hematopoiesis when taking fruits and has a beneficial effect on anemia. Pectins help to remove nitrogenous waste from the body.

Cherry juice is also widely used among the people, which is prescribed as an expectorant for tracheitis, bronchitis and other diseases.

Water infusions from the pulp of the fruit are used by the people for colds as an antipyretic, as well as to increase appetite and as a gentle laxative. Emulsions and decoctions from the stalks have a pronounced diuretic effect and are used to treat uric acid diathesis and joint diseases, and decoctions from cherry branches are usually prescribed for chronic colitis and intestinal atony. Fresh cherry leaves are also used - in the form of tampons for damage to the skin, mucous membranes, nosebleeds.

At the present time there are about 300,000 hectares of industrial cherry orchards in the USSR; advanced farms in Moldavia, Belorussia, and the Ukraine produce 80-100 centners of fruits per hectare. Breeders develop new varieties that are high-yielding and resistant to diseases - Ligel's Griot, Northern Griot, Seyanets No. 1, Glubokaya, Stepnaya, Komsomolskaya, Nairannyshaya, Zvezdochka, Turgenevka, Coeval, Molodezhnaya, etc.

The closest relative of cherries is sweet cherries, which yield tasty, juicy and sweet fruits before all fruit trees. Widely distributed throughout the Soviet Union is the yellow Drogana variety with light cream shiny round or round-heart-shaped fruits weighing 6-8 grams - one of the most winter-hardy, adapted to various soil and climatic conditions.

The main use of sweet cherries is fresh consumption. In the canning industry, compotes, jams and other products are prepared from them.

In places where wild cherries are widely distributed, its hard, dense wood, which does not warp a little when dried, is also used: in the manufacture of furniture, drawing accessories, in the manufacture of turning and carved products.

FIG. One of the most ancient cultures on our planet is the carian ficus, fig, or fig tree (the last name comes from the verb to smokt - savor), which, according to biblical legend, gave Adam and Eve the first clothes and under the spreading crown of which the babies Romulus and Remus were thrown out by the river, where the she-wolf found them and nursed them...

Preachers of Islam began each chapter of the Koran with a call to respect the fig, it was sung in their works by Dante, Leopardi, Pascoli, and doctors attributed miraculous properties to the fig tree.

In our country, figs grow in the republics of Central Asia, in the Caucasus, in the Crimea, abundantly and regularly bear fruit. Ripe fruit, rich in carotene, vitamins, pectin, salts of phosphorus, potassium, calcium, iron, promote the resorption of blood clots, help with anemia, tonsillitis, bronchitis, dry cough, whooping cough. They are a good antipyretic, diaphoretic, antiseptic.

The leaves of the fig tree are also considered medicinal raw materials, since they contain furocoumarins, known as phytosensitizing substances used to treat certain types of baldness and vitiligo. In Georgia, a decoction of the leaves is used to treat dysentery, and Armenian folk medicine recommends it for indigestion and coughs.

However, it should be remembered that both fresh and dried figs are rich in sugar and oxalic acid. Therefore, it is not recommended to abuse them in diabetes and gout. In any case, before using fig tree preparations for medicinal purposes, it is necessary to consult a doctor.

APPLE TREE. Among the wide variety of food succulent plants temperate latitudes The first place in terms of area and yield belongs to the apple tree. Apple orchards occupy about 75 percent of the total area of ​​​​orchards in our country, and thanks to the development of new frost-resistant varieties and the use of perfect agricultural practices, the culture of this tree, known for more than four millennia, is rapidly advancing into northern regions, to the Urals, to Western and Eastern Siberia.

When an apple tree begins to bloom in early spring, the words are involuntarily recalled famous song: "...there is no better color when the apple tree blooms ..." It is difficult to take your eyes off the sprawling crown, similar to a huge snow-white tent. At this time, the flight of bees begins for light yellow, very sweet nectar and pollen. Experts attribute the apple tree to good honey plants and believe that when favorable conditions are created, some varieties can produce up to 35-45 kilograms of honey per hectare. Apple honey crystallizes quickly and has healing properties. And the apple tree itself is considered by the people to be a healing plant. In the "Tales of the Narts" - heroic songs about the heroes who performed feats on the land of the Caucasus, there are such lines:

In the garden near the sledges there was an apple tree, In it an apple ripened a day. Ripens, it happened, an apple in the evening, You look in the morning - but there is no apple! There were those apples of pure gold, There was a healing power in those apples: They healed from wounds and ailments, - They could not heal from death alone.

In the old days, there was a belief that apples eaten for dinner provide light, restful sleep, and waking up in the morning, a person gains vigor and strength, even if the day before he did hard physical or mental work. The fruits, baked in the ashes of the fire, were given by folk healers to patients with pleurisy, and grated with fat were applied in the form of an ointment to cracks on the lips or hands for faster healing. Apple juice is still considered a good dietary remedy for arteriosclerosis, gout, chronic rheumatism, urolithiasis, stomach and intestinal disorders, anemia, beriberi, liver and kidney diseases. Tea from the leaves and petals of the apple tree helps with colds, alleviates coughs, and the juice from baked apples reduces arthritic pain.

The external use of apples is also known, for example, for removing warts. For this purpose, the fruits (preferably Antonov apples) are cut and the wart is rubbed with a fresh cut for several minutes up to six times a day for 3-4 weeks.

Such a diverse use of apples in folk and scientific medicine (since nutritionists recommend from time to time with obesity, hypertension or heart decompensation the so-called "fasting days", when patients are offered to eat 300-400 grams of apples a day) is explained by extremely diverse the chemical composition of fruits that contain various organic acids, tannins, vitamins A, B, C, D, carotene, essential oil, salts of various metals and a number of other compounds that normalize various biochemical and physiological processes occurring in the human body.

Along with cultivars of apple trees, the fruits of wild trees are used - apple trees of the forest, oriental, etc. Summer varieties of apples ripen well on the tree. To be sent over long distances, they must be removed in an unripe form, since they are stored poorly. Winter varieties, on the contrary, should be harvested as late as possible, weather permitting. They ripen already in the maturation and acquire a good taste only two months after harvest.

Of course, at the present time, when hundreds of highly effective drugs are at the service of medicine, it is difficult for the apple tree to compete with the latest pharmaceuticals. But as before, these wonderful gifts of nature attract with their pleasant refreshing taste, delicate aroma and beauty, they are widely used for all kinds of homemade preparations, in the canning and confectionery industries.

PEAR. The pear genus includes 40 species, of which 18 grow on the territory of our country, especially in the Caucasus, in the Crimea. The ancestor of cultivated varieties, the number of which currently reaches 5000, is the common pear, well known already in Ancient Greece, as evidenced by the lines of the poem "Odyssey", written by Homer around 1000 BC:

Behind the wide yard was a rich garden of forty tenths, surrounded by a high fence on every side; there grew many fruit-bearing, branchy, wide-topped trees, apple trees, and pears, and pomegranates with abundant golden fruits ...

The existing varieties of cultivated pears differ from each other in fruit size, shape, color, taste, nature of use (dessert, fruit, household), ripening and storage periods (summer, autumn, winter).

In chemical terms, pear fruits are characterized by the presence of fructose, glucose and sucrose, organic acids, tannins, essential oils, which predetermines their use as a dietary and medicinal product mainly for the same diseases as apples.

LAUREL NOBLE. An old legend says that the bright and joyful god Apollo fell in love with the beautiful Daphne and began to pursue her. When Daphne realized that she would not be able to hide from the loving god, she began to ask for help from her father Peneus, and he, taking pity on his daughter, turned her into a laurel bush. Unable even then to abandon his beloved, Apollo ordered the bush to remain green all year round and began to decorate his head with its leaves.

Such is the legend, but in reality, since ancient times, this low tree with a dark gray trunk, alternate oblong, leathery leaves with a specific smell and slightly bitter taste, fragrant greenish or almost white flowers in axillary umbrellas and black fruits with a large seed is a symbol immortality and wisdom. To this day, the laurel wreath is awarded to especially distinguished athletes, musicians, artists, writers, scientists, and among botanists this plant was called noble laurel.

In our country, laurel is bred as a spice and for decorative purposes on Black Sea coast Caucasus and Crimea. The leaves and seeds of the fruit are widely used in the culinary arts of all peoples to flavor soups, second courses of meat, fish or vegetables, they are added to sauces, mushroom marinades, when canning various products, and are used to flavor confectionery and liquors. In Italy, for example, the famous Baclauro liqueur and a number of other drinks are prepared from the fruits of laurel.

Bay leaf not only has a beneficial effect on the taste of food, but also actively affects the secretion of digestive juices and contributes to a more complete absorption of food. However, we must not forget that an excessive amount of spice causes a sharp irritation of the mucous membrane of the digestive organs, which is undesirable for a healthy person and especially harmful for a patient.

In folk medicine, bay leaf finds medicinal use due to its high content of essential oil, rich in terpenes, alcohols, organic acids and other compounds. Dry leaves insist on sunflower oil (30 grams of leaves per 200 grams of oil) for 7-10 days and the oil infusion is rubbed into sore spots for arthritis, myositis, and neuralgia. With psoriasis, they drink an aqueous decoction of the leaves, and also use the popular "bean ointment", which includes fatty oil from the seeds of the fruits of laurel. This ointment also helps in the treatment of rheumatism and colds.

Bay leaves are harvested, usually in winter, by cutting off thin leafy branches with a well-honed knife. The raw materials are air-dried in the shade or in a well-ventilated area and stored in a dry place in a sealed container, preferably in a compressed state, which guarantees a longer preservation of the aroma. Faded and reddened leaves are unsuitable for use, since they are devoid of essential oils.

In our country, hundreds of thousands of amateurs create beautiful corners of nature in indoor conditions, growing exotic plants of the subtropics. Increasingly, noble laurel also comes to our apartments, as it easily tolerates pruning and shaping and is adapted to grow in a pot culture. In room conditions, laurel is bred with seedlings or seeds, and it can grow in all regions of our country.

Not only laurel, but also many other spice plants belonging to more than 30 botanical families, have a number of medicinal properties. First of all, they act on the physiological and psychological mood of our body, stimulate metabolic and protective functions, have a bactericidal effect, and some of them are used as medicines. So, the famous vanilla - the fruits of a climbing Mexican liana - is used for fever, dyspepsia, anemia, disorders of the nervous system, rheumatism; cinnamon - the bark of several species of cinnamon trees common in Ceylon, India and the islands of Polynesia - has a hemostatic, anticonvulsant, tonic effect, and cardamom fruits reduce headaches, cough and are recommended by the pharmacopoeias of many countries for bronchial asthma.

At present, when more and more attention is being paid to the problem of the nutritional and biological value of food, one should seriously approach the question of the real role that spicy plants should play in the everyday life of modern man.

Particular attention should be paid to domestic spices, primarily various types of thyme, which have been used by the peoples of the Caucasus since ancient times as an analgesic. Employees of the Institute of Botany. V. L. Komarov of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute. N. Narimanov, it was shown that thyme essential oil, in which 52 components were identified, has a high antimicrobial effect against a number of bacteria.

Of no less interest is rosemary - a perennial evergreen shrub whose essential oil is used in perfumery and confectionery production, sacred vitex, lemon catnip, eugenol basil and many others.

It is impossible not to mention some of the foreign plants that, thanks to the hard work and care of botanists, have taken root and feel good in our country. These include, for example, ginkgo biloba, a tall, slender tree with very long branches and leaves extending at right angles, the seeds of which were brought to Europe from Japan in 1730 by the doctor of the Dutch embassy, ​​Dr. Kaempfer, and brought to Russia in 1818 by the director of Nikitsky Botanical Garden X. Steven. Now large decorative ginkgo trees with a pyramidal or weeping crown can be found in Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic republics.

At the end of the last century, exotic trees with a straight trunk, narrow, long sword-like leaves and greenish-white or yellowish flowers were brought to the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus - natives of the African continent, which botanists, marveling at their durability and extraordinary vitality, gave the name dragon trees, or dracaena.

When an American specialist in lie detectors, New York police adviser Clive Baxter set out to prove the telepathic capabilities of plants, he conducted his first experiments with dracaena and found that the plant gives a distinct bioelectrical reaction already to the flame of a lighter and is even capable of experiencing sympathy or antipathy for certain people and animals.

In the future, the results of the experiments of K. Baxter were not confirmed by scientists in the usual scientific setting, but the object of his research, the dracaena, still attracts people with many of its remarkable properties.

Thick strong fibers of dracaena leaves are similar in their mechanical properties to horsehair or. pig bristle. They tie up grapevines, use them in the production of ropes, twine, thread for sewing clothes and shoes, weave strong and light nets for catching fish, sieves for sifting flour, make technical and sanitary brushes, all kinds of brushes and many other useful products. Such vegetable bristles are good for grinding and polishing crystal and metal, and are used for stuffing purposes in furniture and automotive industries.

Dracaena acclimatized not only on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, but also throughout Western Georgia, where it is grown from seeds. Up to ten thousand seedlings are placed on a hectare of a dracaena plantation, from which, over time, about 5,000 kilograms of leaves are harvested annually, and each ton of such raw materials yields 800 kilograms of bristles.

CINCHONA. At the end of 1641, the viceroy of Peru, Don Luis Geronimo Cabrera de Vabadilla, Count Tsinhon, returning from South America to Europe, was exhausted by an unknown disease at that time - malaria, barely reaching the coast of Spain, immediately handed over to the best doctors in Madrid the most expensive cargo - a package with bark of a Peruvian tree, which, as the Indians claimed, perfectly cures malaria. But European celebrities could not unravel the secret of the mysterious peel and save the count from death.

The malaria epidemic captured more and more countries. At that time, the causative agent of this disease was not yet known.

Alternating bouts of severe chills, sometimes short-term, sometimes lasting for hours, high fever, fever, acute anemia, lesions of the central nervous system and general exhaustion of the body carried men and women, old people and children to the grave. The king of England also fell ill with malaria. Probably, he would have had to say goodbye to life if the healer Talbor had not appeared at court, who managed to save the monarch from a serious illness in a few days.

But having cured the king, Talbor categorically refused to reveal the composition of the medicine he used, and only later, having received a generous reward, said that the basis of his "drug" was cinchona bark powder, infused with wine.

You can imagine what a stir has risen around this tool. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans prayed to doctors to save them from malaria, but it was difficult, almost impossible to get the healing bark - the local Indians sacredly kept the secret of collecting the bark, and they tried not to show the trees themselves to strangers.

Only in 1678, the French scientist La Condamine first saw the evergreen cinchona tree and was delighted with the beautiful silvery crown on a mighty stem, shiny leathery leaves and light crimson flowers collected in panicles, reminiscent of lilac brushes. The scientist sent a herbarium sample of the plant to Carl Linnaeus, who, in memory of the deceased Viceroy of Peru, gave it the name Cinchon.

Much has been done to investigate the nature of malaria and find means of combating it by the English physician Ronald Ross, the Italian Giovanni Battista Grassi, the French Alphonse Laveran, the Scot Patrick Menson, and the Russian professor D. L. Romanovsky.

At present, there are extensive plantations of cinchona in India, Indonesia, Africa, South America. In our country, on the initiative of Academician N. I. Vavilov, plants began to be grown in the fields of Adzharia in a two-year culture. The green mass of cinchona grass, containing up to two percent of alkaloids, after special processing is converted into an antimalarial agent - quinet, which is not inferior in its effect to imported quinine.

Along with carrying out work to increase the efficiency of cinchona reproduction, Soviet scientists took the path of creating synthetic antimalarial drugs. The first such drug, plasmoquine, was obtained in our country in 1925. Subsequently, a large number of new drugs appeared, significantly superior in effectiveness, and malaria in the Soviet Union was defeated.

So, trees and shrubs are, as we have seen, the real green friends of man. Friends always protect each other and we need to carefully and attentively treat the world of plants, protect it from all sorts of dangers.

This applies equally not only to trees, but also to numerous species. wild berries, which also bring great benefits to a person. We will talk about the berry tablecloth - self-assembled, freely spread over the vast expanses of our country, in the next chapter.

Trees on the site can not only complement the landscape design, create the necessary shade and please the eye. Some of the tree species have healing powers. We list six of them.

There are many plants on the planet that have medicinal properties, and many of them can be grown on your own plot. It can be not only herbs and flowers, but also trees. From the beginning of spring through the summer, the leaves and flowers of the trees are used for medicinal purposes, and their bark, twigs and roots can be used to treat diseases throughout the autumn and winter.

Some useful tips:

* Do not harm the plant and cut the bark from the trunk of living trees - collect it from fallen branches.

* The medicinal components of the bark are under the outer layer of the bark. It can be stored dried or used fresh.

* The bark is dried in a shaded and ventilated place.

* The leaves of medicinal trees are harvested from the beginning of spring to the summer solstice. Bundles of them are tied and hung in a cool shaded place.

The following medicinal trees can be grown independently near your home:

1. Pine

The use of dry pine bark or tea from pine needles provides the body with a large amount of vitamin C, which strengthens the immune system, has powerful antioxidant properties that help protect a person from chronic diseases.

Pine bark and needles contain vitamin A, a large amount of carotenoids that are good for the eyes. They help prevent the development of cataracts, improve vision. Needles and bark are useful for the respiratory and circulatory organs, improve the condition of the skin and hair. However, not all types of pine are useful. Among them there are poisonous ones, for example, western yellow pine, yew and others.

2. Birch

The juice has a tonic property and is used as a food supplement. It is good as an anti-inflammatory and cleanser, as a detoxifier and tonic. The laxative properties of the juice help to remove harmful waste products from the body, which is useful for gout and rheumatism. This ability reduces fluid retention in the body, helps with psoriasis and eczema. An extract prepared from birch bark has antitumor properties.

3. Cedar

4. Elm

5. Linden

6. Oak

A tree with strong immunity is sensitive to any damage and resists the invasion of harmful organisms. The woody organism reacts to cell damage by the process of compartmentalization, or the formation of protective partitions (barriers) around the lesion. Various substances are deposited in them that prevent the further spread of fungal spores, leading to the development of rot.

The most persistent

Scientists refer to breeds with a good ability to form protective barriers maple, beech, oak, hornbeam, linden. Poor resistance to rot development birch, apple, ash, cherry, poplar, willow, horse chestnut. It is for this reason, and also in connection with the recruitment of relatively short period time of a large mass, poplar in its adult state poses a threat to the safety of the surrounding space, human health and life. Realizing this, in many European countries it is not recommended for landing in the city.

Practice shows that even if a tree has a good ability to form protective barriers, the success of this process largely depends on the vitality (immunity) of the tree organism. And in this regard, after a thorough assessment of the condition of the tree, the tree doctor must choose the right strategy for treating his patient.

• To surgical methods include pruning, processing of mechanical damage and hollows.
• To therapeutic- all activities aimed at strengthening the immunity of the tree, among them: aeration, the introduction of trace elements and fertilizers, treatment with stimulants, etc.

Surgical methods include pruning

Path choice

First and foremost (with the rare exception of safety), the tree care professional should direct efforts to increase the immunity of the plant.

The choice of strategy depends primarily on the season.

• In the dormant phase (outside the growing season), a thorough examination of the crown and trunk of the tree is carried out for safety. Trimming and treatment of wounds is performed (at temperatures up to -5 C), a crown stabilization system is installed.

The leafless period (October to April) is the perfect time to see the skeleton of a tree, so to speak. Nothing is hidden from the eyes and there is a unique opportunity to identify anomalies in the crown zone - multi-stem, competing and intersecting shoots, cracks and dead wood, etc.

• The growing season begins with surgery only in cases where it can no longer be postponed - the presence of a fresh wound, hanging broken branches, dangerous cracks in the forks. In the vast majority of cases, you should start with therapy.

External diagnostic signs such as leaf loss (defoliation), drying of branches, the presence of fruiting bodies of mushrooms, indicate serious internal problems in the tree. A competent specialist will first of all begin to look for the root cause of the disease and will urgently work to restore the protective abilities of the tree.

For reference

Dendrochronology– study of the variability of the width of annual rings of trees. Widely used in condition monitoring and tree care.

Professional Tools

In order to correctly diagnose a tree, an expert must have wide range a variety of equipment: from devices for examining the internal parts of a tree (, , etc.) and ending with tools for working with the soil. They are used to measure the level of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the soil, its temperature and humidity, as well as the degree of compaction.

Provides unique and irreplaceable data dendrochronological information. Examination of the selected core (analogous to a puncture from a human organ) provides answers to a number of very important questions:

• how a tree develops during a given growing season;
• what was the increase in any (of interest to us) year, starting almost from birth;
• when the tree fell ill and what caused it;
• whether the effect of the conducted recreational activities has been obtained.

The latest know-how for Russia is the study and evaluation of the pressure and speed of movement of cell sap in the vessels of a woody plant.

Laboratory data helps to identify the source of the problem and develop a comprehensive treatment that will benefit the tree and strengthen its immunity.

Right and on time

A relatively short growing season, typical for the climatic conditions of central Russia, leads to the fact that the specialist has little time to make a decision and start treatment. This is due to the fact that most procedures aimed at increasing immunity are carried out in the soil. The specialist must provide moisture and air to the root-inhabited soil zone and make up for the existing deficiency of microelements and minerals.

It is important to remember:

• the introduction of elements (nitrogen fertilizers) in the second half of summer that stimulate the growth of new shoots will lead to the awakening of dormant buds. Young shoots will take energy from the tree, but they will still die due to autumn frosts, since they will not have time to lignify in a short period. Naturally, a failure in the rhythm of development will negatively affect the vitality of an already weakened tree.
• after July 15, only those preparations that will contribute to a better accumulation of nutrients in the roots of the tree - with a high content of phosphorus and potassium can be applied to the root zone.
• all aeration activities in the soil are best done before August 30. Fulfill them in more late deadline does not make much sense, since this will not bring any benefit to the tree.

After successfully completed therapeutic work, you can proceed to surgical - pruning, treatment of old wounds. With such an intervention, one must remember the importance of carrying out work within a certain time frame. They depend on the species, age and condition of the tree.. For example, heavy pruning of living tree branches (for example, to reduce crown windage) is often undesirable in the second half of summer, as it can stimulate the development of young shoots from dormant buds, which, as noted above, will die due to frost.

The main goal of a tree care specialist is to develop strong immunity in a plant: a strong and healthy tree successfully resists negative external influences.

Only with specialized knowledge and professional research equipment can a tree care specialist prescribe the right treatment. The illiterate actions of an amateur are at best useless for a tree, and at worst they speed up hisdeathand in both options, the customer loses significant financial resources.

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It has long been known that vegetable world endowed with a soul. Everyone feels it when they sit on a bench under their favorite tree - after a few minutes you begin to feel calm and balanced, bad thoughts seem to disappear and your mood improves. Thoughts flow smoothly, but in the soul it is not known why it becomes joyful. And all because there is a beloved tree nearby, which has healing power and gives it to you.

Method of treatment and prevention diseases that uses the power of trees is called dendrotherapy. Many people do not believe that almost all trees, except for poplar, alder and wild lilac, have a healing effect on humans. Meanwhile, it has long been scientifically proven that every tree has a strong biofield. At the same time, some trees feed our body with their energy, while others take away negative energy. Thanks to this effect, trees normalize blood pressure, soothe, activate metabolism, relieve headaches, stimulate the heart and reduce the effects of many diseases.

All trees are subdivided into donor trees and consumer trees. Donor trees have positive energy, they are used to treat diseases, when a patient needs to take his energy from a tree in order to be cured. The most famous donor trees are oak, pine, birch, acacia, linden, mountain ash, apple, ash, maple, cedar and chestnut. To take energy from a tree, you need to stand with your back to it at a distance of 40-60 cm from it and mentally ask for help.

But there is diseases, in which a person needs, on the contrary, to give away his bad energy. In this case, consumer trees that have negative bioenergetics will help. These trees include: aspen, spruce, fir, bird cherry, willow, willow and hawthorn. It is these "absorbers" that are able to take away illness, resentment and other negative things from a person. To give away negative energy, you need to stand facing a tree at a distance of 20 cm and mentally list what worries you and what help you need.

The main thing - choose the right tree. It is important to know that all trees have different properties and have different effects on humans. You can choose your favorite tree, including by:

1. Oak. Oak has a strong positive energy and liberates. Oak especially helps creative people to stock up on energy, helping to improve their brain activity. It also normalizes blood pressure in hypertensive patients, soothes, helps in the treatment of women's diseases and accelerates the recovery of the body after an illness.

2. Birch. This is a universal tree that can take on any diseases, taking them away from a person. Birch perfectly ionizes the air, soothes, gives energy and vitality. Best of all, she helps those who love her.

3. Apple tree. This tree has a healing effect not only with its fruits, but also with positive energy. The apple tree increases the overall tone and resistance of the body, soothes and relieves fatigue.

4. Pine, Linden and ash increase immunity and normalize heart function. A long stay of a person in a pine forest calms him, relieves anxiety, cough and runny nose.

5. Aspen and willow help to get rid of bad mood and depression. But one should not get too carried away with the treatment of these trees, with long contacts they can suck away not only negative, but also positive energy from a person.

To determine which your healing tree, how and how much you need to interact with it to get the maximum health benefits, listen to your inner voice. Take a walk in the forest or park every day, listen to all the sounds and inhale the smells. Find your favorite spot in a garden, park, or forest, stop there, and take a close look at all the trees that grow there.

Relax, close eyes and try to feel which tree you like best. Try to stand near each tree and if somewhere you feel a warm wave slowly going down your body, then your green healer grows there. As often as possible, come to him, and not only when your health goes off scale. Stand near your favorite tree and mentally turn to it for help. Then sincerely thank him inwardly for what he is.

Not all signs Zodiac have enough sensitivity to feel the positive effect of exposure to their tree. Therefore, it will be useful to know in advance which tree is best for you for treatment. If you are according to the horoscope:

- Aries, then oak, pine, spruce, maple, alder, mountain ash, hawthorn and hazel will best of all have a healing effect on you.

- Taurus, then you are patronized by oak, mountain ash, acacia and walnut.

- Twins, then birch, apple, pear, ash, maple, chestnut and acacia are suitable for you.

- Crayfish, then your medicinal trees are linden, spruce, willow, apple, alder, maple and walnut.

- a lion, then oak, pine, apple, linden and cypress are useful to you.

- Virgo, then you are patronized by oak, linden, pine, apple tree and walnut.

- Scales, then birch, linden, oak and maple will have a special healing effect on you.

- Scorpion, then pine, chestnut, maple, mountain ash, wild rose and hawthorn will help you best.

- Sagittarius, then your main tree is birch, and pine, ash, chestnut and cedar can act as additional energy sources.

- Capricorn, then birch, apple, spruce and mountain ash patronize you.

- Aquarius, then your medicinal trees are linden, pine, mountain ash, chestnut and cedar.

- Fish, then birch, pine, willow, aspen and bird cherry will help you best.