Trees with medicinal properties. How are trees treated? What is your horoscope tree? For herpes on the lips

The fact that trees can have a beneficial effect on our body and mood has been known since ancient times. There is even a direction dendrotherapy— treatment using trees of various species. The ancient Egyptians had wooden amulets that were worn around the neck and protected their owners from misfortune. According to Indian yogis, trees seem to absorb prana coming from the Cosmos, and then feed a person with it. Different tree species have different energetic properties: they feed energy, relieve inflammation, promote mutual feelings, and protect. It is not for nothing that at all times people gained strength from oak, spruce gave off “bad” energy, and drew “good” energy from pine. The impact of wood bioenergy can be quite strong. Even a small piece of wood of one type or another has a beneficial effect on the human body and improves its well-being.
The Celtic priests, the Druids, attached particular importance to the mysticism of the tree. It was believed that each person corresponds to a certain type of tree. If such a correspondence is correctly established, it is possible to correct a person’s fate and effectively carry out his healing. Exists Druid horoscope, where trees correspond to calendar periods:

In addition, there is a correspondence between the energy of trees and the planets of the solar system, and accordingly to the signs of the zodiac:

Here are the magical and bioenergetic properties of some trees and shrubs:

Apricot is a tree - a donor with feeding energy. Protects against infidelity and unnecessary stress in love relationships.

Acacia- a donor tree with powerful feeding energy. Acacia is a tree that gives birth to life. It is she who is asked to give birth to a child.

Bamboo controls outbursts of aggression in a person, influences the meaningfulness of actions, the sequence of actions and events in people’s lives.

Birch-female tree. Symbol of fertility. Helps improve vision, normalizes water balance and has a beneficial effect on the lymphatic system, activates kidney function. Constant communication with her relieves anxiety, fears and nightmares. This tree relieves fatigue, neutralizes the negative effects of everyday stress, and helps restore mental harmony. Birch is considered a sunny, pure tree that brings happiness, light, and joy to any home.

Hawthorn has a powerful protective effect. Relieves anxiety, improves appetite and blood circulation. Hawthorn is considered a symbol of hope and marriage. Hawthorn is especially useful in protective and love magic.

Elder. Our ancestors believed that the elderberry contained great magical power, and of a different nature. It has active protective properties. Elderberry has a calming effect.

Beech-symbol of knowledge. Helps broaden your horizons by learning from others. Will help you be more tolerant of others, allowing them to live their own lives. Increases resistance to stress and the ability to concentrate, and also improves blood circulation.

Cherry is a talisman of magical meetings, contacts, and romantic adventures.

Elm- a tree for active people, but who rely too much on their own strength. Elm teaches its owner to find like-minded people who will be happy to help him in all his endeavors and lead him to victory. Protects against rash actions that may be tempted by envious people and ill-wishers.

Hornbeam has the ability to dispel illusions. This tree is perfect for people who are very exhausted at work or at home. Hornbeam promotes a realistic view of the world around you and your abilities. The hornbeam will help you coordinate your actions and understand the illusory nature of some plans about the future. Gives strength in everyday life, helps to part with ridiculous ideas, prejudices and fantasies. Hornbeam has a beneficial effect on dreamers and romantics who lack the strength and desire to act.

Pear- a talisman of luck, the favor of fortune, providing many pleasant and useful opportunities. It adds charm to the owner, the ability to please even those who do not tolerate him very well.

Oak- a sign of hardness, power, masculine strength. It is an anti-stress agent, which, in addition, activates blood circulation, normalizes blood pressure and shortens the recovery period from illness. Oak stands out among other plants as generators of positive energy. Oak - treats the liver, genitourinary system, helps eliminate congestion in many organs. Relieves toothache. Communication with him is more indicated for men than for women.

Spruce- like the oak, a sacred tree, it is also a symbol of longevity and health. Its effect is indicated for swelling and pain syndromes, nervous disorders and depression.

Jasmine- a talisman against sudden, unexpected bad meetings, incidents and acquaintances. A guide in love affairs, bringing success to the opposite sex.

Willow. This tree has enormous magical powers. This is more of a female tree. Slavic girls used willow as a love spell. This is a symbol of weakness, tenderness, girlish grace, tranquility, the need for constancy and connection. Relieves melancholy and sadness.

Figs- a talisman against wrong decisions and incorrect, unreliable information. Teaches attentiveness, analysis, the ability to compare facts, and draw the right conclusions. It protects against rash statements and forces you to pay attention to the form of your manifestation.

Elm- returns the meaning of life and restores strength. There are moments when the goal of our life loses all its charm, reality seems meaningless, and the dream seems unattainable. Elm will help cope with this problem. It has the ability to restore strength and confidence. Elm will ease the oncoming depression.

Chestnut treats rheumatic diseases and insomnia, relieves nervous tension and, according to ancient wisdom, even drives away fears. Normalizes cardiovascular activity, has the ability to strengthen the body’s overall immunity and nervous system.

Cedar has a beneficial effect on any person and, in particular, on people susceptible to nervous disorders, stress and insomnia, as well as people suffering from disorders of the cardiovascular system and respiratory system. Cedar lives for five hundred and fifty years, accumulating the light energy of the Cosmos and at the right moment gives it to a person.

Cypress- a predominantly male tree, affects the sexual strength of men, sexual activity and not only enhances potency in healthy men, but also heals weak ones. Cypress does not perceive the female body, but through a man it brings harmony and novelty to family relationships.

Maple protects against harshness, relieves stress, helps to find common ground with other people. Gives strength, peace, balance, liberates from boiling passions. Protects the owner from unfair attacks and unnecessary claims from others. In addition, it can very actively correct the owner’s bad character, if, of course, he believes that he has one.

Buckthorn symbolizes humility, purity and innocence. Protects against negative energy. In magic it is used to remove spells and conspiracies.

Hazel (hazel) warns against rash actions and deeds, teaches insight and subtlety of perception. Helps get rid of excess authoritarianism. Promotes rapid recovery of strength.

Linden relieves stress, prevents unnecessary energy expenditure and protects against uninvited intrusions. In addition, it will help with inflammation of the pelvic organs and stomach disorders.

Larch. It is called a calming tree, or more precisely, a tree of enlightenment of the mind. If you are stubbornly haunted by fears, doubts, and causeless anxiety, relief will come from contact with larch, which will help you understand the true nature of human actions, especially those close to you. It fills a person with optimism. Eliminates melancholy and depression. Larch is a good anti-inflammatory tree. Recommended for people with respiratory diseases: such as bronchitis, asthma, etc. Helps with women's diseases.

Olive is a talisman against stress, overexertion, wrong actions, as well as the inability to quickly and clearly make the right decision. Helps you achieve harmony with yourself and satisfaction with your own destiny.

Juniper has strong cleansing potential. But its power is mainly directed not at people, but at the objects around us. It can cleanse an unfavorable aura in an apartment, and has a great effect on “evil” things, even jewelry. For a person, juniper can also be a great help in removing the evil eye or damage, and helps get rid of the effects of a love spell.

Alder. It helps especially well as a talisman for women, making them graceful and charming. It strengthens family ties, unites all family members, and tends to unite people into a clan. This is a tree for women - the guardians of the hearth, the tree of the “big house”. Alder will help you “tie” your husband to your home.

Nut- tree of victory over external circumstances. Helps to quickly restore strength. Provides many loyal companions. Makes a person resilient in the most unexpected situations.

Aspen– a tree that absorbs negative energy. It has the ability to relieve various pains (headache, dental pain, radiculitis, osteochondrosis) and cure various tumors. It will cleanse your aura of harmful influences. Communication with aspen helps with nervous conditions, obsessive thoughts, and causeless fear. But do not be too zealous in using its healing properties. Aspen also has powerful vampiric abilities, sucking energy during long contacts.

Fir eliminates depressed mood, helps to calmly survive the “dark streak” of life, increases endurance and vitality. It has a healing effect on the respiratory system, increases immunity, enhances visual acuity, and increases blood pressure during hypotension.

Rowan protects from the evil eye and damage, evil will. It is believed that rowan sharpens perception and develops the gift of foresight. Effectively cleanses the body of waste and toxins. For people who are easily excitable and nervous, it can be a soft source of energy. Contact with rowan can awaken the sexuality dormant in a woman. For mountain ash, the favorite female age is about 40 years. She gives such women a particularly warm autumn in love, full of strength.

Boxwood- an unusual tree. Strict and strong, wise and impetuous at the same time. Boxwood is used to make protective amulets against evil forces. It protects sleep and protects against energy vampirism.

Plum- This is an excellent talisman against accidents and against attacks on property. Teaches its owner not to get hung up on situations that disturb his vanity and not to be aggressive towards those who wish them well, but for this he chooses an emotional form of influence, forcing him to react with both reason and emotions.

Pine calms, relieves mental stress. It has a beneficial effect on the heart and respiratory organs, normalizes blood composition, and gives vigor. An excellent assistant for those who want to lose weight. Pine can cleanse a person’s aura from outside influences and partially remove damage. In the old days, it was believed that the smell of pine helped to get rid of feelings of guilt.

Rose hip responsible for the emotional side of love. Brings tenderness, spiritual passion, unity of souls into relationships. If you often fail, he will help you.

Apple tree-the tree of female power, female sexuality, awakens the sensual side of nature in a woman. She is more willing to share her powers with young girls. Under the influence of the energy of the apple tree, a girl can imagine the image of an ideal man suitable for her, and in a dream see her betrothed. The influence of the apple tree is very necessary for young, inexperienced and insecure girls. The apple tree is a tree with powerful nourishing energy.

Ash helps to achieve crystal clarity of consciousness and make the right decision in a difficult situation. Ash personifies the connection between what is above and what is below, that is, the connection between the world of gods and the world of people or the spiritual world and the material world. It helps to understand our purpose, sometimes its energy awakens the ability to clairvoyance, allows us to know the future, but it helps only those who are sincere in their desire for knowledge. Ash - will help you find inspiration.

Trees, as is known, have a special energy that is useful for humans; during contact between a person and a tree, active energy exchange occurs, which helps a person improve health. It is especially important to know which trees can help us. In the energy sense, there are donor trees and consumer trees.

How do trees help people?

Consumer trees, able to take away negative energy from a person, help cope with attacks of anger, anxiety, worry, and resentment. They can improve a person’s well-being on a physical and mental level. Consumer trees include aspen, chestnut, poplar, alder, willow, elm, and bird cherry.

Trees have been used since ancient times to treat various diseases. They are used to treat mental disorders, heart and lung diseases, immune disorders, relieve headaches, eliminate neurosis, etc.

Trees are our protectors and helpers. They are able to protect a person from negative energy and attract positive energy vibrations to him. Not only the trees themselves have healing powers, but also their parts: branches, bark, wood.

The most famous healing trees

• Willow is a tree with positive energy. When contacting willow, people suffering from hypertension and other vascular diseases experience relief. This tree calms, promotes relaxation, and eliminates stress. In the old days, willow branches were often kept in the house.
• Cypress is considered the original “male” tree. This tree is capable of having the most positive impact on ““. This tree has a beneficial effect on the psyche and relieves insomnia. This tree is good for those who are emotionally unstable and cannot control themselves.

• Ash is considered a donor tree; it helps to enhance positive emotions and eliminate worries.
• Oak is a symbol of vitality, health and longevity - this tree has a positive effect on brain function and effectively improves memory. Helps improve appetite, gives strength, improves body tone, relieves stress. In ancient times in Rus', oak was considered a tree that increases male strength.
• Juniper is a medicinal tree that improves the functioning of the nervous system and normalizes brain function. The smell of this tree is useful for severe pain, respiratory diseases, hypertension, and insomnia. Treated juniper wood releases special substances - phytoncides, which purify the air.

• Birch is an energetically strong tree. It is believed that birch helps heal physical and mental wounds. Birch restores the strength of sick and weakened people, helps speed up the healing process, and restores internal harmony. Birch is a symbol of femininity and kindness.
• Pine will help you survive the consequences of shocks and stressful overloads. It will help with strong emotional experiences, fatigue, and nervous exhaustion.
• Chestnut has strong energy, liberates a person, relieves pain.
• The apple tree is a symbol of feminine softness, awakens sensuality and kindness. Communication with an apple tree is desirable for women who lack self-confidence; this tree helps to reveal their inner energy potential.
• Aspen is a tree that absorbs bad energy. It is effective for toothache, headaches, and radiculitis. Contact with aspen will help nervous, irritable people find inner peace.
• Rowan is a tree that is ideal for mature women, it increases their inner strength. The energy of mountain ash perfectly relieves tension, aggression, and helps to calm down. In the old days, rowan fruits were a symbol of family harmony and comfort.
• Maple is a tree that helps to gain inner confidence; it gives a sense of balance and helps to survive emotional turmoil.

Let's not forget that trees can help us. Don’t be lazy and choose a time for a walk in a park, forest plantation or regular city square.

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. Let's list six of them.

There are many plants on the planet that have medicinal properties, and many of them can be grown in your own garden. It can be not only herbs and flowers, but also trees. From the beginning of spring and throughout the summer, the leaves and flowers of trees are used for medicinal purposes, and their bark, branches 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 found under the outer layer of the bark. It can be stored dried or used fresh.

* Dry the bark in a shaded and ventilated place.

* Leaves of medicinal trees are collected from early spring until the summer solstice. Bunches of them are tied and hung in a cool, shaded place.

You can grow the following medicinal trees yourself near your home:

1. Pine

Drinking dry pine bark or pine needle tea supplies the body with a large amount of vitamin C, which strengthens the immune system and has powerful antioxidant properties that help protect a person from chronic diseases.

Pine bark and needles contain vitamin A and a large amount of carotenoids, which are beneficial for the eyes. They help prevent the development of cataracts and improve vision. The needles and bark are beneficial for the respiratory and circulatory system, and improve the condition of the skin and hair. However, not all types of pine are beneficial. Among them there are also 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 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

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 studying this wonderful gift of nature, but the more secrets he learned, the more unresolved questions arose before him. We still don’t know what can explain, for example, the unusually long life of a tree. After all, plants that have survived to this day were born when man led a cave lifestyle, long before the reign of the first dynasties of the pharaohs and the construction of the Cheops pyramid.

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

The Canary Islands are home to dragon trees that are up to 6,000 years old. Their peers are the mighty baobabs - hermit trees that cannot tolerate 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 more than 4600 years old, was named Methuselah. According to biblical legends, Methuselah is the oldest man on earth.

In our country there are many long-lived trees that can live up to two thousand years or more. These include oak, plane tree, and eastern cypress (in Central Asia it is called plane tree). For example, in Komsomolabad, at the foot of the Karateginsky ridge, there is a huge plane tree, under the crown of which there is a teahouse, a dining room and various utility rooms. A juniper growing on the rocks of the Shugnan ridge with a trunk half a meter thick reaches an age of 1200 years. There are many venerable “elders” among the familiar lindens, Siberian cedars, sugar maples, and walnuts. Many of these trees bring great benefits to human health and are indispensable helpers for people in white coats. In this chapter we will focus on the most remarkable and interesting of them.

PINE. Among the evergreen conifers, one cannot help but pay attention to the majestic giants, delighting with their beauty and vitality. More than 108 million hectares are occupied by pine forests in our country. These trees grow on sandy, podzolic, rocky soils, and are found on peat bogs, rocks, limestone and chalk outcrops.

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

From natural cracks in the bark or from small artificial cuts, precious light yellow, transparent resin-resin slowly flows, which is hunted in the forest by lifters - people of a difficult but fascinating profession. Many millions of years ago, the resin flowing abundantly 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 legend says that at the bottom of the deep and turbulent Baltic Sea, Princess Jurate lived in a beautiful palace made of honey stone. One day the beautiful princess heard a cheerful song sung over the roof of the palace by the young fisherman Kastitis, who was fishing. At first sight, Jurate fell in love with the young man and persuaded him to settle in her castle. Having learned that Jurate had violated the law of the sea, the formidable god Perkunas struck the fisherman with a lightning strike, and Jurate was chained with a thick chain to the wall of the ruined palace. And every time the sea calms down and Jurate sees the body of her beloved, 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, calling it sea, combustible, radiant or solar stone. Some claimed that amber is formed from the secretions of wild animals or whales, others said that it was a concentrate of solar rays that was ejected by the sea or floated up from silt heated by the sun, others considered amber to be oil solidified in water, a waste product of forest ants, etc. n. Mythological stories were also used to explain the origin of amber. Thus, Ovid in his “Metamorphoses” argued that amber was formed from the tears of the daughters of the sun god Helios and his wife Clementine, who were turned by their parents into poplars in order to forever mourn the death of their brother Phaeton.

The ancient Romans expressed a correct guess about the origin of amber. But subsequently, European celebrities began to attribute 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 by the secretion 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, with great names and merits, recognized it as a real mineral, despite the multitude of small reptiles contained in it, which are found in the forests, and on many sheets that are visible inside the amber.” Indeed, leaves and flowers of plants, mosses, ferns, spiders, beetles and bees, butterflies, flies, mosquitoes, mosquitoes, bird feathers and the fur of large animals stuck to amber resin in ancient forests and these inclusions tell us about the flora and fauna of bygone eras.

Amber has served humans for over six thousand years. Already in ancient times it had a high value and was kept along with other treasures.

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

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

In the collections of the Hermitage in Leningrad and the Armory Chamber in Moscow you can see an amber knob 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 staff of Patriarch Philaret (1632) and an amber the staff of Patriarch Nikon (1658), an amber mug presented to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1648 by the Lithuanian ambassador.

The so-called Amber Cabinet, which was given to Peter I by Emperor Friedrich Wilhelm I in 1716, became world famous. For many years, the cabinet, containing more than 200 unique items, was located in the Winter Palace, and in 1755 it was transported 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 polished yellowish-brown amber of various shapes and sizes. For about 200 years, this room was the pride of the world's decorative art. But during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis stole the Amber Room. In 1942, it was exhibited for display to a narrow circle of people at the Royal Castle in Königsberg, and then disappeared without a trace and its 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 transfusions, since amber prevents the destruction of red blood cells - erythrocytes. Succinic acid is obtained from amber, which is used for the production of vitamin D and other medicinal preparations, as well as leather substitutes, dyes, substances included in soaps, toothpastes, etc. Succinic acid is a good biological stimulant. Research by Soviet scientists has shown that pre-sowing treatment of seeds with succinic acid leads to a noticeable increase in yield.

Amber was very popular in folk medicine. It was used by Galen, Avicenna, Al-Razi, Biruni and other ancient scientists to remove foreign objects that got into the eyes. In China, amber beads were worn to protect oneself from illness. In the old days, in Russian houses, an amber necklace was put on the wet nurse for the same purpose. More than a dozen recipes that included amber were used by 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 during periods of strong storms, amber placers were vigorously eroded. As a rule, this labor-intensive work did not bring tangible results, although there are cases when the amount of amber washed 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 in a day, and in 1914, 870 kilograms of sunstone were collected in the same area in a day.

For many years, amber was mined using various primitive methods. So, with the help of sharp peaks, they loosened the amber-bearing layer from the boats, which lies at some depth in the sea, while the amber floated up and was caught with special nets. Sometimes amber was scooped out of the water with a special device - a net attached to a horseshoe-shaped arch installed between two boats; as 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.

Currently, industrial development of amber in its deposits has been established. The largest amber deposits 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” over an area of ​​about 300 square kilometers. It is believed that the amber reserves here reach 280 thousand tons, and annual production is estimated at several hundred tons. At the same time, the size of the found pieces of amber ranges from barely visible to the eye to blocks weighing several kilograms.

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

My little edge is like a golden Drop of thick amber. It shines, blossoming in patterns, flows in songs, joyfully burning.

Resin, the amount of which from one pine tree can vary widely (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 prepare turpentine, varnishes, and rosin.

The wonderful 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 for neuralgia, rheumatism, gout, colds, as well as for inhalation for putrefactive bronchitis. Many substances are obtained from turpentine, which in turn are used in medicine. Suffice it to remember that it is the raw material for the synthesis of the valuable medicine terpinhydrate and for the production of an excellent stimulant of cardiac and respiratory activity - camphor. When during the Great Patriotic War, 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 medicine.

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

During long-term dry distillation of wood from pine trunks and branches, a dark product with an unpleasant burnt odor is formed. This is tar, which has a disinfectant and local irritant effect. It is used externally for some skin diseases and for wound healing. The coal remaining after 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 for poisoning with potent substances.

Some types of pine contain huge amounts of oil in their fruits. Siberian pine or cedar are especially different in this regard. Siberians often lovingly call cedar a miracle tree or breadfruit, and pine nuts - golden. Indeed, nut kernels are rich in oil, proteins, and carbohydrates. Only one cedar tree produces about 200 kilograms of nuts during its long life (cedar grows up to 800 years, reaching 40 meters in height and 1.5 meters in diameter), and in the forests of Western Siberia their harvest annually exceeds a million tons! It is estimated that from such a quantity of nuts it would be possible to obtain as much oil as would be produced by 5 million cows, and this oil is superior in quality to animal fats. In folk herbal medicine of Siberia, nuts are used in the treatment of nervous disorders, pulmonary tuberculosis, and kidney diseases.

In early spring, when the fragrant, resinous pine buds have not yet begun to grow and have not had time to bloom, pickers go into the forests. The technique for collecting buds is very simple and boils down to cutting them off with a sharp knife in whole “crowns,” sometimes along with a small part of the tops of the shoots of young trees. The raw materials are dried in attics (but not in an oven, since the resin melts and evaporates) and stored in dry, well-ventilated areas in plywood boxes on racks or shelves.

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

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

Pine serves well not only for humans. Our feathered friends extract useful substances from its cones; squirrels and chipmunks, moose and other forest inhabitants feast on pine seeds. Even fish willingly eat pollen, which covers water bodies with a thin film during the flowering period. Coniferous vitamin flour from pine “foots” 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.

Scientists-breeders protect and expand plantings of young trees, develop original methods of grafting Siberian cedars onto their European relatives, creating valuable species. And the grateful forest giants reciprocate the man’s feelings and 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 also such giants in the forests of our country, whose age is approaching a thousand years. There are about two hundred giant oak trees in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus, and in the village of Verkhnyaya Khortitsa, near Zaporozhye, a fifteen-trunked patriarch grows, under whose spreading crown the Cossacks of Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s troops rested. The oldest tree in Europe is considered to be a two-thousand-year-old oak tree growing in Lithuania, in the town of Stelmuzhe, and the total area of ​​oak forests in the USSR - bracken, sorrel, blueberry, blackberry, nettle, fern and others - reaches 9 million hectares and more and more are populated with oaks every year space.

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

Oak owes its widespread popularity primarily to wood that has exceptionally high strength, hardness, durability and a beautiful pattern, which allows it to be used for a variety of purposes. Dark gray oak bark with numerous longitudinal cracks is no less popular - an ancient folk remedy that has been proven for centuries. A decoction of the bark has long been used for gargling for 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, and with excessive sweating.

The bark is collected in early spring during the period of sap flow, when it is richest in tanning agents 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 damage in the rain.

Oak leaves contain a large amount of phytoncides that have a detrimental effect on pathogenic microorganisms and therefore they are sometimes brewed as tea and drunk for infectious diseases. The galls we talked about above are also used in the same way. 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 roasted, they are mixed with an equal portion of also roasted grains of barley, rye, oats and wheat, a little wild chicory and dandelion roots are added for taste and coffee is prepared, which is consumed, as usual, with milk and sugar. Store acorn coffee in boxes with parchment paper or in a sealed glass container for four to five years.

Oak grows very slowly. It begins to bear fruit only after 30-40 years. But Soviet breeders learned to develop new forms, characterized by rapid growth, resistance to adverse conditions, beautiful crown color and slender trunk. Chemists, biologists, and doctors 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 easily accommodate themselves in the territory occupied by these straight, column-like trees reaching a height of 50 meters, and larch reserves in the USSR are estimated at a huge figure - more than 28 million cubic meters.

Larch is called the queen of the taiga, the Siberian oak, and the tree of eternity. These names reflect the pride of Russian people in these beautiful and powerful 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 wood, which were used for centuries. And the Trojan Bridge on the Danube, built by the Romans from larch logs, has survived for 1800 years.

Does larch have any medicinal benefits? There are no preparations from this plant in scientific medicine yet, but scientists have managed to obtain Venetian turpentine, gum, cellulose from wood, and from these products, in turn, extract 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 of Organic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a new substance was obtained from larch waste through special chemical treatment - dihydroquercetin, which in animal experiments had the ability to strengthen blood vessels, activate liver activity, and eliminate vitamin deficiency in the body. Employees of the Kharkov Research Chemical-Pharmaceutical Institute calculated that DKV (as this compound began to be called for short) is contained in larch waste up to 8 percent and therefore it seems advisable to obtain it on an industrial scale.

SPRUCE. Since ancient times, our people have had great respect for spruce. Without this tree, dressed in sparkling gold and silver garlands, hung with bright light bulbs and beautiful toys, the most joyful holiday - the New Year - is unthinkable. 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, providing 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-resonating spruce wood is used to make balalaikas, guitars, mandolins and other musical instruments. Many of the 45 spruce species known to botanists are decorative and serve as the best decoration for gardens and parks. Blue spruce trees stand like sentries 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 of the Mesozoic era. And already at the dawn of humanity, spruce was used as a healing plant. Many recipes have been preserved, which include various spruce products. Its needles, rich in essential oils, vitamin C, tannins, mineral salts and phytoncides, were used in traditional medicine as a diuretic, choleretic, diaphoretic and antiscorbutic. For colds, a decoction of young spruce shoots or cones in milk helps well, and for abrasions, abscesses, ulcers, cuts and other skin lesions, use a mixture of equal parts of spruce resin, wax, honey and sunflower oil, which is heated over low heat and used as an ointment. or in the form of a patch. For a strong cough, folk herbalists recommend melting spruce resin and yellow wax, letting it cool, placing pieces of the mixture on hot coals and inhaling 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 included in some expectorant herbal mixtures, which help with bronchial inflammation, rheumatism, tuberculosis and other diseases. And in recent years, scientists have learned to prepare concentrates of vitamins C and K from spruce needles, which in turn can be included in various medications.

BEECH. In the mountains of Western Ukraine, in the Crimea and the Caucasus, beech forests spread over hundreds of thousands of hectares - powerful, straight-trunked, reaching 50 meters in height and 2 meters in thickness. They have smooth light gray bark, a thick crown that almost does not transmit sunlight, with ovoid-oval leaves and dioeciously hollow flowers that appear in the axils of the lower leaves simultaneously with their blossoming. Of the 10 known species of beech, 3 grow in our country: oriental, forest and large-leaved. Among the inhabitants of beech thickets there are long-livers, 4-5 centuries old.

The forestry and operational value of beech is great. Its wood is light, coreless, with a yellowish-red tint, beautifully patterned, although inferior in strength to oak and chestnut, it is widely used in housing construction. It is used in the manufacture of musical instruments, furniture (including the famous “Viennese” furniture), parquet, plywood, machine parts, barrel containers for storing perishable products, roofing shingles, sleepers for finishing ship cabins.

Beech firewood is used for fuel, and a valuable substance, potash, is obtained from the ash. 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 to treat skin diseases, and internally in combination with sugar or honey, masking its unpleasant odor, for putrefactive processes in the lungs and bronchi, against tapeworms, and for abnormal fermentation in the stomach and intestines.

Another richness of the tree is its triangular shiny brown nut-shaped fruits. They are only slightly larger in size 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 storehouse of nutrients - fats, carbohydrates, organic acids, vitamins. Beech nuts, which are not inferior in taste to pine 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 the light yellow oil from beech fruits. It is successfully used in the baking, confectionery and canning industries, in perfumery and medicine, various branches of technology, and the cake remaining after obtaining the oil is given as protein feed to dairy cattle, pigs and poultry.

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

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

For a long time, people have not liked aspen; they called it the sworn tree, trembling tree, whispering tree, and even the tree of Judas. The last name comes from an ancient belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself on an aspen tree, and it continuously shakes its leaves, trying to shake off the memory of the traitor. In fact, the trembling of aspen leaves is explained by the fact that their petioles, flattened in the upper part, are very mobile and begin to move at the slightest breath of wind. Knowing this feature of aspen, true connoisseurs of nature respect this indispensable inhabitant of our forests. The famous Russian writer S. T. Aksakov wrote: “Not noticed by anyone, the trembling-leaved aspen is beautiful and noticeable only in the fall: its early fading leaves are covered with gold and crimson and, clearly different from the greenery of other trees, it gives a lot of charm and diversity to the forest during autumn leaf fall."

According to one legend, a dispute took place between the trees about who brings more benefit to people. And the pine, and the larch, and the ash, and the fir, and the cedar, and the birch vied with each other about their merits, and only the aspen had nothing to say. Time has dispelled the myth about the uselessness of aspen. Wasn’t she the one who in the old days gave twigs to peasants for weaving baskets and helped fire victims rebuild after village fires? Isn’t it its bitter bark that hares and forest giants, moose, eat with pleasure? Isn’t it from its wood that the world-famous Khokhloma products are made, and numerous factories produce millions of boxes of matches? It’s not for nothing that aspen is called a fire wonder.

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

With the development of chemistry, aspen became even more valuable, 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 had a bad reputation 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 buds or an alcohol tincture of the bark of the branches with leaves was taken for fever, colds, acute and chronic inflammation of the bladder, hemorrhoids, rheumatism, and gout. Burns, wounds and ulcers were treated with dried and powdered aspen buds, mixed with butter to the consistency of an ointment; lichens and warts were smeared with the sap of the tree, and rubbed in when salts were deposited in the joints.

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

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

Aspen is increasingly entering our everyday life and has sent its brothers all over the world - laurel and balsam poplars, desert and fragrant, delta and silver, black and white...

Poplar wood is light, white, soft, easy to process, and almost does not crack when dry. Poplar provides both construction timber and material for packaging, and serves as a source of raw materials for paper and artificial silk. Chrysin, a flavonoid with a remarkable golden color, is 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 kidney preparations 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 an aqueous infusion of the buds of this plant is recommended for articular rheumatism.

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

WHITE WILLOW. A long time ago, when the waters of the global flood subsided, the earth was covered with lush vegetation and many trees rose high on the slopes of the mountains, along rivers and lakes. But the largest 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 tree and admired it. Suddenly a storm broke out and powerful waves were about to 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 moved 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 help her. 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 gave the remains of the trunk to Gilgamesh as a reward for his feat, and the carpenter made from them magical emblems of royal power - a magic drum and a thin flexible stick, which allowed the hero to reign in the city of Uruk for many years and get closer to the gods in terms of his power.

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

There are not many trees on earth that have such an abundance of relatives as willow. Carl Linnaeus established 29 species of willows, the scientist Vildenov - 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 the 170 species of willows found in our country. Here there is a broom - a ten-meter tree with pointed leaves, and a red willow - krasnotal, with thin shiny leaves, and a Russian willow - chernotal, which blooms later than other willows.

A weeping willow looks beautiful near a pond, when the flexible branches of the tree with long green leaves bend towards the water itself. No less good are the decorative species that are grown in public gardens 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 with their delicate aroma attract many bees, collecting abundant bribes of nectar and pollen. Quite often, winged toilers receive from willow several kilograms of golden-yellow, straw-colored, fragrant and sugary honey, which has high taste.

In many regions of Russia, peasants willingly used willow branches to weave baskets, extracted paint from them, young trees were planted to strengthen banks and dams, and original healers knew how to use willow to treat 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 areas, is used in the form of a decoction. To do this, boil 10-15 grams of finely chopped dry bark in a glass of water for 15-20 minutes, filter, cool and drink one or two tablespoons three times a day before meals as a good astringent for various stomach and intestinal disorders, as an antipyretic for rheumatic pain, for diseases of the spleen, liver and gall bladder, and also instead of quinine for attacks of malaria. Together with anise fruits, coltsfoot leaves, linden flowers and raspberry fruits, willow bark is included in diaphoretic teas, which 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 for inflammation and diseases of the upper respiratory tract, and for moistening ulcers and tumors on the body.

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

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

LINDEN. You often see how a person admires beauty, how he wants to “stop the moment” in order to absorb the beauty that has struck him. This 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 honey plants, secretes up to 16 kilograms of nectar, and linden honey, ripened in the hive and known as “linpica”, of which more than a thousand kilograms are obtained per hectare of flowering lindens, is colorless, fragrant, excellent for taste, has no equal among table honeys and has medicinal properties.

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

Linden is of great economic importance. Its wood is distinguished by its lightness, resistance to environmental factors, relative elasticity, adhesive strength and tensile strength. It cuts well, planes smoothly, is easily processed, polished, impregnated with dyes and antiseptics, is very resistant to warping and cracking, and is capable of preserving canned foods without giving them an extraneous odor or taste. Linden wood is widely used in the manufacture of drawing boards, barrel containers, household utensils, carpentry and turning products. In the old days, folk craftsmen secretly carved seals from linden wood to replace official ones, which is where the well-known expression “linden” - fake came from. Bast mats, ropes, sponges and many other useful 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, mumps, and cholecystitis. Linden teas often contain oak bark, sage leaves, mallow and elderberry flowers, raspberry fruits, coltsfoot leaves, willow bark and other healing plants. Prepare tea by brewing two tablespoons of dried herbs in two glasses of water for 15-20 minutes, then strain and drink before bed.

Linden flowers are popularly used to prepare emollient poultices for joint rheumatism and gout, for rinsing, and aromatizing baths. Linden bark is still used to treat erysipelas. Young linden leaves are used as food in some countries. They are recommended for preparing fortified infusions and nutritious salads rich in vitamin C.

The best time to collect linden flowers is the end of June, when most of them have already bloomed, 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 linden flowering is delayed and it begins to smell fragrant 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 to five longitudinal, slightly visible ribs, containing more than 30 percent of valuable nutritious oil, which tastes like almond oil. According to its physical properties, it belongs to the best types of table oils. Its important advantage is its good resistance to air access. After squeezing the oil, highly nutritious cakes are obtained, which are used for feeding to livestock.

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

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

Linden is the main honey plant in our country, but the domestic flora includes up to 1000 species of entomophilous (bee-pollinated) plants, of which about 200 are of some importance for beekeeping. According to their habitat, all honey plants are conventionally combined into separate groups, the main of which are the honey plants of forests and parks (linden, maple, willow, honey locust, rowan, honeysuckle, lingonberry, raspberry, viburnum, heather, hogweed, angelica, strawberry, fireweed, goldenrod , nettle and others), fruit and berry honey plants (apple, cherry, currant, gooseberry, plum and others), agricultural nectar plants of field and forage crop rotations (buckwheat, sunflower, spring rape, vetch, coriander, camelina, clover, sweet clover, china sowing, white mustard and others), grassland honey plants (coltsfoot, rapeseed, burdock, thistle, sage, cornflower, mint, oregano, meadow geranium and others), vegetable garden and melon plants (watermelon, melon, chicory, pumpkin , cucumbers and others), honey plants specially sown for bees (phacelia, borage, lemon balm 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, from a hectare of fireweed they get 350-400 kilograms of honey, weeping loosestrife gives 300-350 kilograms, white clover and heather - 200-300, maple, willows, snowberry, mouse peas, red clover - up to 200, meadow cornflower, spring rape, currants, oregano - about 100 kilograms. Many plants give only a supporting bribe, when there is only enough nectar to feed adult bees and feed the brood.

In years with dry and hot summers, when the melliferous flora produces little nectar, bees bring so-called honeydew honey to the hive. Its source is a sweet sticky liquid (honeydew) secreted by aphids, mealybugs, light bulbs, jumping grass lice, moth-like psyllids and other insects living on plant foliage. Freshly harvested honeydew honey is light amber, sweet and pleasant to the taste. Its best varieties can be used in baking and confectionery production. But in general, honeydew honey is of low quality, since honeydew becomes heavily clogged with dust and becomes infected with various bacteria and fungi. Therefore, beekeepers do not allow benign 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 by plant leaves and is called honeydew. Honeydew appears mainly during sharp temperature fluctuations 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 leaves of dark green color received its name from the Greek word “syrincs” - pipe, because in the old days shepherds carved smoking pipes and pipes from its wood that made melodious sounds. In Rus' it was also called “chenille” from the word “blue”, since this color determines one of the colors of lilac inflorescences.

Lilacs are used to 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, led by Moscow florist L.A. Kolesnikov, obtained 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 USSR State Prize, and in 1973 the International Society of Lilac Growers awarded him the “Golden Branch of Lilac” medal. This is the first medal issued by an international body for the creation of lilac varieties.

There are so many different colors of lilac flowers: boiling white, cream, pink, blue, purple, light yellow! Even the outer and inner sides of the corolla of a flower can be of contrasting colors; sometimes the edge of the petal is decorated with an 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 unfurl and the color changes. The flower turns silver and becomes pearly.

Powerful inflorescences with single light purple flowers are called “hydrangea”. In appearance, they resemble huge half-meter panicles of garden hydrangea. This lilac attracts bees, which 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 remarkable healing properties, already in the 11th-12th centuries.

The wonderful smell of the essential oil contained in flowers has long attracted the attention of perfumers around the world. They introduce it into the most expensive perfumes and cosmetics. In Russian folk medicine, an infusion of fresh lilac leaves was used for fever and malaria; the flowers were brewed as a tea, which was drunk 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 the Nanais, lilac inflorescences are used as a tonic. The flowers contain glycosides, flavonoids, resins, essential oil and other substances. An infusion of flowers quickly relieves fatigue and gives vigor.

Lilacs are harvested during the period of 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 sufficiently studied. The glycoside syringin was isolated from the bark of common lilac, and tannins and some mineral elements were found in the leaves. Successful completion of the scientists' research will allow lilac to be included in the arsenal of herbal remedies used in medicine.

WHITE ACACIA. Residents of many areas of the central zone of our country cannot imagine their cities and villages without white acacia. This tall tree with a branched trunk and a spreading, sparse crown of alternate leaves, which during flowering are almost hidden in the abundant snow-white caps of flowers, grows in parks and gardens, in courtyards and on streets, along roadsides, on the slopes of ravines 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 Garden, 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 white acacia belongs the scientific name Robinia. Later, botanists began to call white acacia also false acacia, in order to distinguish it from the numerous species of the genus of true acacias, growing mainly in Africa, Australia and other tropical countries. Some of these species serve as a source for 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 acacia is rightfully considered one of the main honey plants. In windy weather, the aroma of its flowers spreads far, to which bees and other insects constantly fly. A strong bee colony 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 the untrained 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.

In folk medicine, Robinia has long been considered a healing plant. The medicinal raw materials are flowers containing the glycoside robinin 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 fruit, tansy flowers, and celandine herb.

White acacia flowers are harvested at the beginning of flowering, plucking whole inflorescences with hands or cutting off with knives. Dry in attics or under sheds with good ventilation, spreading them in a thin layer on paper or fabric and turning them over often.

ROWAN. On short autumn days, when there are fewer and fewer leaves on the trees and they cover the inhospitable yellowing grass in a thicker layer, the heavy clusters of rowan berries blazing with red crimson with selected large berries look especially beautiful. The specific Latin name that Linnaeus gave to this low tree with smooth gray bark and lacy leaves is “aucuparia,” which literally means “to catch birds,” since according to a long-standing 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 wintered feathered fraternity. Often, so many birds flock to the fieldfare for a feast that the branches cannot support the living load and the ripe grapes fall to the ground, where they become prey for forest voles, hedgehogs and other animals. Our tart berries are loved by moose, the “master of the forest” bear, and many other representatives of the domestic fauna.

During its long life (the tree lives up to 150 years), rowan produces a huge amount of fruit. The most widespread species, the common rowan, has small, bright red fruits, and some varieties, such as the world-famous Nevezhin rowan, 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 competitors would not find out about it, he named it Nezhinskaya (after the name of a small town in the Chernihiv region).

The Michurin hybrids are magnificent, such as Granatnaya, Likernaya, Michurinskaya dessert and others, as well as some types of rowan growing in the Far East of our country. Among them, elderberry rowan 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 rowan tree per year. With the onset of frost, the amount of sugar in fruits increases significantly, they lose their astringency, become sweet and pleasant to the taste. That’s when housewives begin to demonstrate their skills: they prepare various delicacies from rowan - marshmallows, marmalade, compotes, preserves, syrups, tinctures, etc.

Rowan has long been held in high esteem in Rus'; people composed heartfelt songs about the forest beauty. Original healers called “thin rowan” one of the main healing plants. Indeed, berries contain large quantities 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. Thanks 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 the fruit 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.

The fruits of chokeberry - spherical, black-purple, shiny berries with eight brown seeds interspersed in the dark pulp - ripen in late August - early September and have a pleasant sour-sweet taste due to the presence of sugar and organic acids. Vitamins B1, B2, C, PP, carotene, folic acid, and minerals are also found in chokeberry fruits. But the main wealth of the plant, its main value as a reliable medicine, 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 the “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 body tone, relieves mental and physical fatigue, has a protective effect against bacterial and viral diseases, and radiation injuries.

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

At the same time, it should be remembered that chokeberry fruits cannot be consumed by patients suffering from peptic ulcers, and in very limited quantities they can be included 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 impervious to the rays of the sun, whose age often reaches several centuries. It is mistakenly believed that in Rus' the fruits of these trees originated from Greece, which is why they are called walnuts, although the walnut did not grow wild in this country and its homeland is Asia Minor.

For many centuries, the walnut has been extremely popular among the peoples of different countries, and the distant resemblance of the kernel of this nut to the human brain has given rise to numerous legends about this plant. Thus, 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. The nut shells are used to make linoleum and roofing felt, grinding and emery stones. Rarely beautiful wood is used for the manufacture of elegant furniture, gun stocks, in various carved and turned artistic products and in decorative and finishing works. The nut "burl" is especially highly valued - basal growths formed from colonies of dormant buds and sometimes reaching a weight of up to a ton. They are used to produce special plywood - veneer with an intricate patterned pattern, which is used to cover high-quality furniture, boxes and other decorative items. A kilogram of burl on the international market is equal in value to a kilogram of silver; 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 ripe nuts spill out onto the grass. In a year, one tree under favorable conditions 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, potassium salts, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and other minerals. In terms of the amount of vitamin C, unripe walnut fruits are many times greater than such well-known vitamin-rich fruits as black currants and citrus fruits. Just two dozen nuts are enough to satisfy a person’s daily fat requirement. No wonder I.V. Michurin called walnuts “the bread of the future.” And the predictions of the great transformer of nature came true. Nowadays, nut kernels are included in various food products - sweets, halva, cakes, ice cream. Nuts cooked with honey are very tasty - kozinaki. Churchkhela is popular among southerners - nuts strung on a string, which is dipped several times in a special paste of grapes and flour. After each immersion, the churchkhela thickens, then it is dried and a nutritious sweet “sausage” is obtained. Nuts are included in the diet of athletes and astronauts; they are recommended for weakened people, as they relieve fatigue, restore strength and vigor. Experts say that the nutritional value of nuts is 3 times higher than that of wheat bread, potatoes - 7 times, cow's milk - 10 times, apples - 12-13 times!

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

But the main medicinal raw material is not the nuts themselves, but the leaves of the tree, containing the alkaloid juglandin, the dye juglone, which has a bactericidal effect, carotene, tannins, essential oil and mineral salts. In folk medicine, walnut leaves are used internally 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 anthelmintic. Usually a tablespoon of crushed dry leaves is poured into a glass of boiling water, left for 15-20 minutes, filtered and drunk a quarter glass 3-4 times a day. The leaves also help well when used externally as a mouth rinse for 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 mother remedy.

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

Many ancient recipes for using walnuts by different peoples have been preserved. So, for frequent urination, the nut was fried in smoldering coals and taken before bed with water, and for bronchial asthma, the nut kernels mixed with apricot seeds and ginger were mixed with honey, made into balls and taken before bed, chewed thoroughly and washed down with ginseng decoction.

Walnut leaves are harvested in early summer, when they contain essential oil glands and have a balsamic aroma. Leaf segments are plucked from the central petiole and used fresh, since when dried slowly they turn black and lose their valuable substances.

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

Since ancient times, dogwood has been classified as a useful plant. Its wood, one of the strongest in the plant world, was widely used for making weapons and musical instruments that did not decay for centuries. No wonder Homer armed his Odysseus with a dogwood arrow, and the mythical Romulus, the founder of Rome, drew the boundaries of the future “eternal city” with a dogwood spear.

The bark and leaves of dogwood, which grows in abundance in the Crimea, Ukraine and the Caucasus and is cultivated in many areas of the central zone of our country, contain a large amount of tannins and are therefore used for tanning leather and producing stable dyes. But, of course, the main wealth of dogwood is its ruby, dark red or light yellow oblong fruits with strong stones, saturated with various sugars, organic acids, phytoncides and other valuable substances. In terms of vitamin C content, dogwood fruits are superior even to such a well-known vitamin carrier as black currants, and are only slightly inferior to the champion among vitamin plants - rose hips. A plate filled with ripe dogwood fruits can decorate any table, and preserves, jellies, compotes, jelly, marmalade, juices and many other products made from dogwood berries have an extraordinary taste and aroma. In addition, dogwood fruits are healing. They are widely used in folk medicine, as an astringent for stomach and intestinal disorders, as well as for hypovitaminosis, metabolic disorders, colds, anemia, some skin lesions, and as an excellent antipyretic for malaria.

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

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

BARBERRY. This is a highly branched berry bush with ovoid, light green leaves gathered in bunches and small bell-shaped yellowish flowers in drooping inflorescences, growing along the banks of rivers and in ravines, on the edges of forests and among bushes, it was known to the ancient Babylonians and Indians. Inscriptions on clay tablets of the Agiurbanipal Library from 650 BC mention barberry berries as a means of “purifying the blood.”

In Rus', for several centuries, barberry berries were used to prepare delicious jams, jellies, juices, syrups, and were used as a pleasant seasoning for various meat and fish dishes. And folk 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 cultivation, 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 enters the fruiting season early. However, in subsequent years, interest in the barberry culture began to noticeably decrease, as it was found that a microscopic rust fungus often develops on the underside of the leaves of the bush, the spores of which infect nearby cereals and forage grasses.

Currently, barberry is again beginning to attract the attention of researchers, since substances that have a beneficial effect on the human body have been found in various organs of the plant. Among them are a number of alkaloids, the main one of which, berberine, is associated with the ability of barberry preparations to have a stimulating effect on the muscles of the uterus, cause a decrease in blood pressure, increase the secretion 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 a decoction of barberry leaves and tincture of bark or roots prepared at home is used to stop bleeding, reduce pain and inflammation in diseases of the gallbladder and liver. . For inflammation of the gums and ulceration of the oral mucosa, rinsing with an infusion of barberry roots (a teaspoon of crushed raw material per glass of boiling water) helps a lot. 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 collected in early spring during the period of sap flow, 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 pharmaceutical preparations in combination with celandine herb, mint leaves, valerian root, serpentine rhizome, dill seeds and willow bark.

Barberry also attracts landscapers, as many of its species are decorative. A whole collection of barberries has been collected in the Kaliningrad Botanical Garden: Amur - an almost three-meter-high bush with thick shoots, planted with tripartite large needles; Thunberg - with coral berry beads; woodleaf - with beautifully curved shoots and strong dark glossy leaves.

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

HAZEL. Residents of Ancient Rome and Greece grew hazelnuts, considered them 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. The nut was considered a symbol of life and immortality. Millennia have passed, and peoples’ love for this amazing plant not only has not faded, 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 common hazel - a shrub reaching 7 meters in height, with rounded, obovate leaves and almost spherical nuts, collected 5-6 pieces in inflorescences. Hazel blooms much earlier than other plants and the 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.

Hazel nuts contain a diverse range of useful substances: up to 70 percent fat, about 20 percent proteins, almost 8 percent sugars, and their calorie content is significantly superior to cereals, milk, potatoes, raisins, figs and other vegetables and berries. The nuts begin to ripen in late summer, and the collectors of these wonderful gifts of nature receive great pleasure, perhaps no less than fishing or the “third hunt.”

Nut kernels are very tasty in their raw form and are widely used in the confectionery industry. The oil from the nuts, light yellow in color with a pleasant smell, reminiscent of almond or olive in taste, is used in cosmetics and dietary nutrition, since it is well absorbed by the body. It is also used by artists, engineers, chemists and representatives of many other professions.

You can even make milk and cream from hazel nuts. To do this, they are shelled, cut, soaked overnight, and then ground in a mortar with a small amount of water and the resulting “milk” is whipped until smooth 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, and craftsmen carve various souvenirs. Hazel bark and nut shells contain a lot of tannins. People sometimes use them to treat diseases of the stomach and intestines, and also prepare a decoction with which they wash their hair to make their hair darker.

The nuts are collected when their tops 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, producing so-called roasted nuts. Immediately after finishing the fire, nuts are poured into a thin layer on the hearth, cleared of ash, and dried, stirring occasionally. When a strong aroma appears, sprinkle the nuts with cold water. Rapid cooling makes the shell brittle and easy to crack. The nuts are then dried in the wind.

BLACK ELDERBERRY. A tall bush with grayish-brown bark, opposite leaves and yellowish-green small flowers collected in large inflorescences, 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-violet berries - help prolong life and are sacred. In one of the old herbalists you can find the following curious recipe: “Hollow out an elder cane from the lower end and put crushed wolf eyes there, and the tongues of three green lizards, the heart of a dog, and three swallow hearts, add iron ore powder to this and cover it with an iron knob, and this elder cane will protect on the road from all sorts of misfortunes and protect dashing people from forest animals.” 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 Rus', from ancient times, elderberry clusters were used to polish samovars to a copper shine, and the berries were used to obtain paint. The bark from young branches was used to drive flies, mosquitoes, moths and other insects out of homes. 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, headaches and toothaches. Powdered bark and roots were sprinkled on wounds, weeping ulcers and burns, they relieved the “ache” of rheumatism and gout, and they treated hemorrhoids, dislocations and broken bones.

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

Currently, elderberry has limited use in scientific medicine, although scientists have established the presence in its fruits and flowers of tannins, organic acids, a diaphoretic glycoside, vitamin P, and essential oil. Dried flowers are included in diaphoretic and diuretic preparations along with fennel fruits, anise and nettle herbs, and parsley root. Infusions of flowers are used to gargle for sore throats and stomatitis, jelly from the fruit has a slight laxative effect, and a decoction of the bark and roots is used to make baths that help with erysipelas and patients suffering from polyarthritis. All elderberry preparations should be used only as prescribed by a doctor.

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

Once upon a time, millions of years ago, thickets of heather rose three to four meters above the ground. Nowadays it is rare to see plant specimens taller than 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 the heather still attracts various insects with its sweet nectar. In terms of the amount of “drink of the gods” produced by bees, heather could be classified as a first-class honey plant, since in a number of areas 200 kilograms of honey are obtained 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 that one of the tribes in the north of the country skillfully prepared from heather. The Scots passed through this region with fire and sword, but the freedom-loving people did not reveal their secret to the invaders and took it to the grave.

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

The old mead maker proudly answers the tyrant king in R. Stevenson’s famous ballad “Heather Honey” (translation by S. Ya. Marshak).

Not only honey, but also heather itself has long been held in high regard by herbalists. The aerial part of the plant, containing glycosides, enzymes, tanning agents, saponins, essential oil and other biologically active compounds, is used in folk medicine in the form of infusions and decoctions both internally and externally for dysentery, rheumatism, gout, tuberculosis, liver and kidney diseases. Heather grass is included together with lemon balm leaves, lavender flowers, chicory root, wormwood and violet herbs in a pharmaceutical collection used for nervous excitement, neurasthenia, insomnia and other disorders of the nervous system. This mixture is prepared by brewing one tablespoon of the mixture of the listed herbs with a glass of boiling water, and drink half a glass before bed as prescribed by the doctor.

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

POMEGRANATE. On the shores of the Black Sea, a poor fisherman and his wife lived in an old house. He always hospitably opened his doors to strangers who asked for shelter from bad weather. But the life of the old men was darkened by three daughters - vicious and very ugly, they constantly cursed their parents for their small stature and unsightly appearance. The middle daughter, Grenade, was especially zealous. And when the fisherman became completely unbearable, he prayed to the sky and began to ask him to take pity on him. Then the sky turned Grenade into a tall, slender tree with pink flowers. But no one picks them or smells 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, 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-shelly, Bala-Mursal, Shakhnar, Kazake-anar are known far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.

Each pomegranate tree annually produces several dozen and sometimes two to three hundred fruits, which are usually collected in late autumn in dry weather and stored in cool fruit storage 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 from nature to man. This juice is used against scurvy and fever, to quench thirst, and improve appetite. It increases the body's resistance to infectious diseases and has a tonic and general strengthening effect. In medicine of different nations, 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.

Treatment of burns with pomegranate juice has become widespread. Moisten the burn area with juice diluted with water and sprinkle the affected area with powder from the dry pericarp of the fruit. A crust forms on the burned surface, under which healing quickly occurs.

The peel of the fruit 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 prepare indelible paints - black, chestnut, blue. The alkaloids pseudopeltierine, 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: 40-50 grams of bark are infused for several hours in two glasses of water, then boiled until half of the liquid has evaporated, the remainder is filtered and cooled. The patient drinks the resulting decoction in small portions over an hour on an empty stomach, and after 1-2 hours takes a saline laxative. However, the use of this remedy requires caution, as pomegranate alkaloids can cause severe irritation of the gastrointestinal tract.

The leaves and flowers of pomegranate are not forgotten by traditional medicine. The former are used to brew tea, which helps with stomach and intestinal disorders, and the flowers in the form of poultices are good for relieving pain from bruises and broken bones.

JUNIPER. According to an ancient legend, the beautiful Cypress lived in Crimea, she fell in love with a handsome young man and the young people decided to get married. But they were poor, and the young man set off on a long voyage in search of happiness. She waited a long time for her fiancé Cypress, every day she went out onto 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 remained standing forever, turning into a slender, beautiful tree.

Perhaps popular rumor is mistaken in considering the land of ancient Tauris 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 Mediterranean countries, India, and Central Asia. Cypress trees have occupied vast territories on our planet and are represented by a wide variety of forms: dwarf, weeping, silver, coniferous.

One of the many relatives of the cypress - the common juniper - is an evergreen shrub with a straight trunk, unlike its southern relative it is more frost-resistant, more easily adapts to soils of varying moisture content and therefore is found both in dry pine forests and in wet spruce forests, along the banks of 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.

Many poets, scientists, and artists admired the beauty of juniper. I. E. Repin personally planted a juniper alley in his estate, which has been preserved 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. In one day, one hectare of juniper evaporates almost 30 kilograms of phytoncides. This is quite enough to clear the air of a big city from pathogenic microorganisms.

In the second year of life, fleshy cones are formed on the branches of the juniper, similar in appearance to berries. These black fruits with a bluish bloom, called juniper berries in everyday life and trade, are one of the oldest and most popular medicines. In the past, they were widely used both internally and externally in the form of 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 and to remove worms. It is believed that the healing effect of the plant’s fruits is due to the presence of 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 limited mainly 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 herb, wheatgrass rhizome, licorice root, bearberry leaves, birch buds, parsley fruits, and 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 a tablespoon several times a day 15-20 minutes before meals. At the same time, doctors always warn about the need to be careful, since 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, united under the general name juniper, are often found. When distilled with steam, the needles of this relative of the juniper 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 bandages and is not inferior in its effectiveness to the well-known Vishnevsky ointment.

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

Raw materials are usually collected 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 air under a canopy. Well dried, 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 over who should be the master of Attica, they decided that the winner would be the one who could perform the greatest good deed. Poseidon struck 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, a flowering tree, so beautiful that the council of the gods decided the dispute in Athena's favor.

Since ancient times, many nations have cultivated the olive tree, or olive tree, and in our country its cultivation 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 clusters is located on the Akhali-Afoni state farm, near Sukhumi, founded in 1879 and currently numbering tens of thousands of plants.

The main wealth of the olive is its fruits - black-purple, oval-shaped drupes containing up to 70 percent of non-drying fatty oil in the pericarp pulp. The best type of oil, known as olive or Provençal, is obtained by gently squeezing selected ripe fruits in the cold. It is almost odorless, has a pleasant taste, is easily digestible and is widely used in the fish canning industry, as well as in medicine as a solvent for the preparation of injection solutions of camphor and other drugs, for oral administration for certain diseases of the liver and stomach, or for external use as rubbing and as part of cosmetic ointments, creams, lipsticks. The success of using olive oil is largely determined by its high content of vitamins A, B, C, proteins, carbohydrates and other compounds beneficial to 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 global production of vegetable oils, the olive tree ranks seventh in terms of the amount of oil produced. The total production of olives and oils annually amounts to more than one billion tons, with about 80 percent of this production coming from European countries - Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece.

The fruits of the olive tree also have nutritional value. For the population of southern countries, canned olives are one of the main food products, since their calorie content is only slightly inferior to bread and superior to rice. However, ripe 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.

Of the foreign olive varieties, Ascolano, Sevillano, and Santa Caterina are widespread in our country, and of the domestic ones - Baku 17 and Baku 27.

Olive wood is hard and heavy and is used in turning and carpentry.

CHERRY. Currently, it is difficult to determine exactly when cherries began to be cultivated. However, the first written mentions of this amazing tree were found in ancient documents dating back to the 4th century BC.

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

Since ancient times, cherries have delighted people with their beautiful blossoms, filled the air with a delicate aroma and given amazingly tasty fruits. People treated her with great love and care. Cherries were grown in the south, in the middle zone of the European part of our country, in Western Siberia, Central Asia and other areas.

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 mid-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, pectin substances, vitamins, nitrogenous, tannins, dyes, coumarins, and microelements. It is the presence of microelements that helps improve hematopoiesis when taking fruits and has a beneficial effect on anemia. Pectin substances help remove nitrogenous waste from the body.

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

Water infusions from the pulp of the fruit are popularly used 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, and nosebleeds.

Currently, there are about 300 thousand hectares of industrial cherry orchards in the USSR, advanced farms in Moldova, Belarus, and Ukraine receive 80-100 centners of fruit per hectare. Breeders are developing new varieties that are high-yielding and disease-resistant - Griot Ligelya, Griot Northern, Seyanets No. 1, Glubokaya, Stepnaya, Komsomolskaya, Nairannyshaya, Zvezdochka, Turgenevka, Rovesnitsa, Molodezhnaya, etc.

The closest relative of the cherry is the sweet cherry, which produces a harvest of tasty, juicy and sweet fruits earlier than all fruit trees. The Drogana yellow variety with light cream shiny round or rounded heart-shaped fruits weighing 6-8 grams is widely zoned throughout the Soviet Union - one of the most winter-hardy, adapted to various soil and climatic conditions.

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

In places where wild cherry trees are widely distributed, its hard, dense wood, which warps little when dried, is also used: in the production of furniture, drawing supplies, and in the manufacture of turning and carved products.

FIG. One of the most ancient crops on our planet is the Carian ficus, fig, or fig tree (the latter name comes from the verb to soak - to savor), which, according to biblical legend, gave Adam and Eve the first clothes and under whose spreading crown the infants Romulus and Remus were thrown out by the river, where they were found and nursed by a she-wolf...

Muslim preachers began each chapter of the Koran with a call to respect figs; Dante, Leopardi, Pascoli sang them in their works, and doctors attributed miraculous properties to the fig tree.

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

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

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

APPLE TREE. Among the wide variety of edible succulent plants of 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 advanced agricultural techniques, the culture of this tree, known for more than four thousand years, is rapidly moving to the northern regions, the Urals, Western and Eastern Siberia.

When an apple tree begins to bloom in early spring, one involuntarily recalls the words of a famous song: “...there is no better blossom when the apple tree blooms...” It can be difficult to take your eyes off the spreading crown, which looks like a huge snow-white tent. At this time, the bees begin to fly for light yellow, very sweet nectar and pollen. Experts consider the apple tree to be a good honey plant 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 medicinal properties. And the apple tree itself is popularly considered a healing plant. In "Tales of the Narts" - heroic songs about heroes who performed feats in the land of the Caucasus, there are the following lines:

In the garden of the Narts there was an apple tree, in which an apple ripened a day. It used to be that an apple would ripen in the evening, and in the morning you would look and there was no apple! Those apples were pure gold, There was healing power in those apples: They healed from wounds and illnesses, - 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 when waking up in the morning, a person gains vigor and strength, even if he had done hard physical or mental work the day before. Fruits baked in the ashes of a fire were given by folk healers to patients with pleurisy, and grated with fat they were applied as 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, vitamin deficiencies, liver and kidney diseases. Tea made from the leaves and petals of the apple tree helps with colds, softens coughs, and juice from baked apples reduces gouty pain.

Apples are also known to be used externally, for example, to remove warts. For this purpose, the fruits (preferably Antonov apples) are cut and a fresh cut is rubbed on the wart 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 for obesity, hypertension or heart decompensation the so-called “fasting days”, when patients are asked to eat 300-400 grams of apples per day) is explained by the extremely diverse the chemical composition of fruits, which 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 cultivated varieties of apple trees, the fruits of wild trees are used - forest apple, oriental apple, etc. Summer varieties of apples ripen well on the tree. To send them over long distances, they must be harvested unripe, as they are poorly stored. Winter varieties, on the contrary, should be harvested as late as possible, weather conditions permitting. They ripen already in storage and acquire a good taste only two months after harvest.

Of course, at the present time, when hundreds of highly effective drugs are used in 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, and 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 in our country, especially in the Caucasus and 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 about 1000 BC:

Behind the wide courtyard there was a four-decade rich Garden, surrounded on all sides by a high fence; there grew there many fruitful, branchy, broad-topped trees, apple trees, pear trees, and pomegranates with abundant golden fruits...

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

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

LAUREL NOBLE. An ancient 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 to give up his beloved even then, Apollo ordered the bush to remain green all year round and began to decorate his head with its leaves.

This 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 umbels and black fruits with large seeds has been a symbol immortality and wisdom. To this day, the laurel wreath is awarded to particularly distinguished athletes, musicians, artists, writers, scientists, and among botanists this plant is called the noble laurel.

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

Bay leaf not only has a beneficial effect on the taste of food, but also actively affects the secretion of digestive juices and promotes more complete absorption of food products. However, we must not forget that an excessive amount of spice causes severe 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 are infused with 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. For psoriasis, drink an aqueous decoction of the leaves, and also use the popular “bean ointment,” which contains fatty oil from the seeds of laurel fruits. This ointment also helps in the treatment of rheumatism and colds.

Bay leaves are collected, as a rule, in winter, by cutting off thin leafy branches with a well-sharpened knife. The raw materials are air-dried in the shade or in a well-ventilated area and stored in a dry place in a closed container, preferably in a compressed state, which guarantees longer preservation of the aroma. Faded and browned leaves are unsuitable for use because they are devoid of essential oils.

In our country, hundreds of thousands of amateurs create beautiful corners of nature indoors, growing exotic subtropical plants. Laurel laurel is increasingly coming to our apartments, as it easily tolerates pruning and shaping and is adapted to growing in pots. In indoor 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 spicy 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. Thus, the famous vanilla - the fruit of a climbing Mexican vine - is used for fever, dyspepsia, anemia, nervous system disorders, rheumatism; cinnamon - the bark of several types of cinnamon trees common in Ceylon, India and the Polynesian islands - has a hemostatic, anticonvulsant, tonic effect, and cardamom fruits reduce headaches, coughs and are recommended by the pharmacopoeias of many countries for bronchial asthma.

At present, when increasing attention is being paid to the problem of the nutritional and biological value of food, the question of the actual role that spicy plants should play in the life of modern man should be approached with all seriousness.

Particular attention should be paid to domestic spices, primarily various types of thyme, which has been used by the peoples of the Caucasus as a painkiller since ancient times. Employees of the Institute of Botany named after. V. L. Komarov of the Academy of Sciences of the AzSSR and the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute named after. N. Narimanov showed 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, the essential oil of which is used in perfumery and confectionery production, chaste vitex, lemon catnip, eugenolium 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 are doing well 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. Stephen. 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 - immigrants from the African continent, to which botanists, marveling at their longevity and extraordinary vitality, gave the name dragon trees trees, or dracaena.

When an American lie detector specialist, New York police advisor Cleve Baxter set out to prove the telepathic capabilities of plants, he conducted his first experiments with dracaena and found that the plant gives a clear bioelectric reaction even to the flame of a lighter and is even capable of experiencing sympathy or antipathy for certain people and animals.

Subsequently, the results of K. Baxter’s experiments were not confirmed by scientists in an ordinary scientific setting, but the object of his research, dracaena, still attracts people with many of its remarkable properties.

Thick, strong fibers of dracaena leaves are close in their mechanical properties to horsehair or. pork bristles. They tie up vines, use them in the production of ropes, twine, threads 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 production.

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

CINCHONA. At the end of 1641, the Viceroy of Peru, Don Luis Geronimo Cabrera de Vabadilla, returning from South America to Europe, Count Cinchon, exhausted by a disease unknown at that time - malaria, having barely reached the shores of Spain, immediately handed over the most expensive cargo - a package of Peruvian tree bark, which, as the Indians claimed, perfectly cures malaria. But European celebrities were unable to unravel the secret of the mysterious crust and save the count from death.

The malaria epidemic captured more and more countries. The causative agent of this disease was not yet known.

Alternating attacks of severe chills, sometimes short-term, sometimes lasting for hours, high temperature, fever, acute anemia, damage to 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. He probably would have had to say goodbye to his life if the healer Talbor had not appeared at court, and in a few days he managed to save the monarch from a serious illness.

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

You can imagine the excitement surrounding this product. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans begged 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 silver crown on a mighty stem, shiny leathery leaves and light crimson flowers collected in panicles, reminiscent of lilac clusters. The scientist sent a herbarium specimen of the plant to Carl Linnaeus, and he, in memory of the deceased Viceroy of Peru, gave it the name cinchona.

The English doctor Ronald Ross, the Italian Giovanni Batista Grassi, the Frenchman Alphonse Laveran, the Scotsman Patrick Manson, and the Russian professor D. L. Romanovsky did a lot to study the nature of malaria and find means to combat it.

Currently, there are extensive cinchona plantations in India, Indonesia, Africa, and South America. In our country, on the initiative of Academician N.I. Vavilov, plants began to be grown in a two-year culture in the fields of Adjara. The green mass of cinchona grass, containing up to two percent of alkaloids, after special processing is converted into an antimalarial drug - quinine, 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, plasmokhin, was obtained in our country in 1925. Subsequently, a large number of new drugs appeared, significantly superior in effectiveness, and malaria was defeated in the Soviet Union.

So, trees and shrubs are, as we have seen, man's true green friends. Friends always protect each other and we need to be careful and attentive to the plant world, protect it from all dangers.

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

Nature to this day hides many of its secrets from people, and therefore a person has to comprehend them, sometimes by accidentally touching them. Why do many things give rise to doubts in people? A person needs to prove everything, personally test it on himself, in order to believe it. This is also the method of treatment with trees.

Which trees are medicinal?

In spring, it is difficult to resist the attraction of rustling forest leaves. But very often, after such vigorous walks, the strength becomes even less than before, and fatigue is already right there. Why is that? Quite simply: forest trees both charge you with energy and, exactly the opposite, take it away. A powerful energy exchange occurs, which, merging with your energy, takes away your strength. But you shouldn’t divide trees into positive and negative. Each tree contains two sources. And each tree for each person individually can be either a source of energy or a receiver of energy.

Headaches, heart murmurs, an enlarged thyroid gland, inflammation, physical and spiritual trauma, and nervous tension indicate that you have too much energy and need to get rid of it. It has been noticed that spruce is the best at releasing bad things; chestnut and willow can also take on negativity.

When the body feels a lack of energy, then it is tormented by frequent colds, sore throats, gastrointestinal disorders, and arthritis. You need to look for help from trees - “chargers”. Energetically strong are pine, maple, birch, acacia, but the strongest of all trees is oak.

They say that trees that are less than 100 years old absorb energy, while trees that are older give it away. To determine whether a tree gives or takes away energy, you can use a long-tested method: cut a strip of foil 10–15 centimeters long and 1–5 millimeters wide. Take one end of the strip with your thumb and forefinger and approach the selected tree. If the free end of the strip begins to stretch towards the tree, then this tree is a vampire, if the opposite happens, then such a tree can imbue you with energy. This is how you can determine which trees have a healing effect on you.

How to treat with a living tree?

In order for a tree to help you get rid of the bad or recharge yourself with the good, you first need to find your tree and make friends with it. To do this, first of all, examine him, secondly, greet him, thirdly, stand with your bare feet towards him, hug him, put your forehead on him, inhale and hold your breath as long as you can.

The moment you exhale, you will feel the energy that will flow from the tree through your body. If you didn’t feel anything, most likely friendship with a particular tree will not work out. We need to look for another tree. It is believed that trees are living and sensual creatures (just like you), so you cannot go to them only with the thought of receiving something, they need to give something. To give the tree what you don’t need, or vice versa, to take what you need, you can press your cheek, forehead, back to it, you can hug the trunk or touch it with your palms.
And it’s not for nothing that in ancient times trees had a cult significance. The ancients revered some forests as especially sacred, the trees in such forests were protected, and God forbid, cutting down even one... it could cost the pest his life.

Properties of objects made of wood.

The healing properties of living wood are also inherent in things made from it. For example, in the past, combing hair with a wooden comb was a special daily cleansing ritual. This ritual was as significant as washing in the morning. According to mythology, hair connects the soul with another world; it absorbs a lot of information about a person.

Combs made of pine and walnut will help you get rid of negative energy and stress. For those who are tired, combs made of oak, maple or birch are perfect.

Also pay attention to what kind of wood the furniture decorating your home is made of!

And, besides:

Don’t go to sick and small trees for help, go to beautiful and big ones.

In order to experience the healing properties of a living tree, comb your hair with a wooden comb made from it, and not a plastic or metal one.

If you want to not only neutralize negative energy, but also turn it into positive energy, then keep a piece of maple or hazel at home.

If you are tormented by depression, stand on the south side of the tree. If you feel anxious, empty, or are weakened by inflammatory processes, approach the tree from the north side. If you just want to receive energy from a tree, then it doesn’t matter which side you hug it from.