Description of hawthorn as a plant, calorie content and chemical composition of the fruit. Beneficial properties of berries when eaten and contraindications for use. Dish recipes. Interesting facts about hawthorn.
The content of the article:
Hawthorn is a perennial thorny shrub from the Rosaceae family. In total, 47 species of plants are known, but the most studied is the blood-red hawthorn, common. The names used are “lady”, “hawk claws” and even “rooster spur”. It can grow as a large bush or a cluster of trees - in the latter case, the height of the shoots reaches 5 m. The fruits can be spherical, elongated, apple-shaped in shape, the taste is sweet and sour, the flesh is fleshy, yellow or orange, with many small seeds in the middle. Wild growth is found in the Tambov region and Eastern Ukraine, mainly in clearings in deciduous forest. In the Central Black Earth Region it is bred artificially for decorative purposes. Fruits and berries are used in medicine and cosmetology.
Composition and calorie content of hawthorn berries
In diets for weight loss, dishes with this plant are introduced only in cases where it is determined that the cause of extra pounds is edema. The main property - pressure reduction - is too pronounced. But a one-time inclusion of the product in the daily menu is welcome - it replenishes the reserve of nutrients without adding extra pounds.
The calorie content of hawthorn per 100 g is 58.5 kcal, of which:
- Proteins - 0.8 g;
- Carbohydrates - 14 g;
- Dietary fiber - 3.6 g;
- Water - 82.4 g.
- Vitamin E (alpha tocopherol) - 2 mg;
- Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) - 90 mg;
- Vitamin A - 2.333 mg;
- Beta-carotene - 14 mg.
- Potassium - 32.10 mg;
- Calcium - 11.80 mg;
- Manganese - 3.40 mg;
- Iron - 0.20 mg;
- Magnesium - 0.28 mg;
- Copper - 0.35 mg;
- Zinc - 0.35 mg;
- Cobalt - 0.18 mg;
- Molybdenum - 7.00 mg;
- Chromium - 0.01 mg;
- Aluminum - 0.12 mg;
- Selenium - 10 mg;
- Nickel - 0.34 mg;
- Strontium - 0.24 mg;
- Iodine - 0.06 mg;
- Boron - 77.20 mcg.
The benefits of hawthorn for the body are provided by the following components:
- Vitamin A - supports healthy vision and stimulates skin regeneration.
- Beta-carotene has an antioxidant effect, stimulates the body's defenses, and helps it get rid of free radicals.
- Ascorbic acid is the main participant in redox processes and normalizes protective organic functions.
- Potassium - normalizes the acid-base balance and magnesium levels, stabilizes the urinary system, discharges excess water and prevents the appearance of edema, stabilizes heart contractions.
- Potassium is responsible for muscle contractility and is a building material for all organic tissues.
- Molybdenum - has an antioxidant effect, stabilizes reproductive function in men, stimulates metabolic processes and growth in children.
Beneficial properties of hawthorn
For the preparation of medicines, almost all parts of the plant are used, except for the leaves - bark, young shoots, flowers and fruits. The benefits of hawthorn berries when consumed extend to all organic systems.
The natural remedy has the following effects on the body:
- Eliminates spasms of coronary vessels and intestines.
- Since it has a diuretic effect, it helps remove excess fluid from the body and get rid of swelling.
- Prevents the development of atherosclerosis and angina pectoris.
- Normalizes blood pressure, stabilizes heart rate.
- Has an analgesic effect in diseases of the cardiovascular system.
- Calms nerves and increases emotional stability.
- It has a general tonic effect and increases resistance to infections.
- Stimulates immune functions, inhibits the vital activity of the herpes virus and papillomavirus that circulate in the body.
- Regulates blood sugar levels.
- Stabilizes the functioning of the thyroid gland in particular and the endocrine system in general.
- It has a pronounced choleretic effect and is used in the treatment of dyskinesia and inflammatory liver diseases.
- Helps get rid of dizziness and reduces the frequency of migraine attacks.
Hawthorn helps athletes get ready for victory - this natural stimulant allows them to quickly recover after increased stress.
Harm and contraindications to the use of hawthorn
Healthy people should use hawthorn with caution, limiting the amount eaten. Too many fruits at one time can cause a decrease in blood pressure - drowsiness, dizziness, headache, nausea...
The contraindications for consuming hawthorn berries are as follows:
- Individual intolerance;
- Bronchial asthma in the acute stage or with frequent attacks;
- Diabetes mellitus with insulin dependence;
- Tendency to constipation and intestinal dysbiosis with the appearance of intestinal spasms.
- Pregnancy. There is a possibility of developing arrhythmia in the fetus and increasing the frequency of manifestations of toxicosis - vomiting and dizziness - in the expectant mother.
- Childhood. Pure berries or homemade teas infused with them can be given no earlier than 12 years, after the cardiovascular system is fully formed.
Recipes for dishes with hawthorn berries
Hawthorn fruits are widely used in cooking. They are used to make preserves and jams, press juice for cocktails, prepare sauce for meat and various drinks. The berries are dried and crushed to obtain flour. A small addition gives baked goods an original taste.
Recipes with hawthorn berries:
- Puree. Ripe berries are boiled until softened, without dividing into parts. There should be enough water so that after chopping the soft fruits it reaches the consistency of thick sour cream. Add enough sugar so that the taste is pleasant, but not sweet. The puree is placed in sterilized jars and sealed.
- Sauce for pancakes or porridge. Hawthorn puree, prepared according to the previous recipe, is mixed with honey and a little cinnamon is added.
- Paste. Hawthorn puree is made a little thicker than usual, sugar is added to make it sweet, cinnamon, and caraway seeds. You can add a handful of rolled poppy seeds to improve the taste. The “dough” is mixed, laid out in a thin layer on trays and dried in the oven at a temperature of 60°C.
- Hawthorn cookies. Dried hawthorn berries are ground into flour using a coffee grinder or mortar - the finer the flour, the easier it will be to prepare the product. The proportions of hawthorn flour and regular wheat flour are 1 to 3. The quantity of products is calculated for 1.5 cups of flour. Melted butter - approximately 100 g - is ground with half a glass of sugar with a wooden spoon, add salt, add lemon zest from one citrus, 2 eggs and bring everything to a homogeneous structure. It is more convenient to beat the eggs with a small amount of sugar in advance. Combine both portions of flour, add the butter mixture, and knead into a thick dough. In the future, you will have to cut out figures from it, so you need to achieve an absolutely uniform consistency and lack of stickiness. The oven is heated to 200-210°C, the dough is rolled out on a wooden sheet sprinkled with flour, and figures are cut out of it. These figures can be sprinkled with poppy seeds, coarse granulated sugar, and crushed nuts. Then the sheet with the blanks is placed in a cold place for 15 minutes. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes - you can check the readiness with a toothpick.
- Candies. Hawthorn puree is used as a semi-finished product for making sweets. Ingredient proportions: 1 part starch, 4 parts sugar, 10 parts puree. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed, a wooden or plastic tray is sprinkled with powdered sugar. Spread the candy mixture in a thick layer - 2-3 cm, again generously sprinkle with powdered sugar. Air dry. The taste of sweets can be improved with the help of any additive - poppy seeds, cinnamon, ground cloves. Very tasty candies are obtained if you place fresh juicy berries in the middle of each - 1-2 currants or cranberries. Berries are added to candies if you planned to eat them right away. If you are going to enjoy it later, you will have to give up the juicy filling. To preserve sweets, they are placed in clean, sterilized, dry jars and sealed with lids. Shelf life - up to 2 months.
- Jam. Boil whole berries in water until softened: for 1 kg of berries - 2 glasses of water. The cooled fruits are ground into puree, sugar is added and set to boil. The proportions of puree and sugar by weight are 1 to 1. Boil until the amount of berry mixture is reduced by a quarter. Just before connecting, add lemon juice and mix thoroughly.
- . Preparing it is quite difficult and tedious - you have to remove all the seeds from the berries. If you are not ready for such a “feat”, then you can be content with jam. Hawthorn - 400 g - sorted out, boiled in a glass of water, placed on a sieve - do not drain the water. Now remove the seeds from the berries, mix the pulp with sugar - 500 g, bring to a boil and add a little citric acid to taste.
- Pie filling. If you take care of the vitamin ingredient in the fall, you will not have to suffer from anemia in winter. The fruits are air dried and ground into flour. Mix flour with honey - 2 tablespoons per glass of flour, mix. Can be placed in sterilized jars or used immediately.
There are many legends about the origin of hawthorn. In an eastern legend, Allah created the plant at the request of a weak bird, which was not allowed to build a nest by larger birds. The bush needles became reliable protection for the bird.
In the legend of Ancient Rus', a witch turned a good lady into a hawthorn bush so that the flow of good deeds that the lady did during her life would not dry up. That is why the plant helps cure many diseases.
Hawthorn has different popular names. Among the ancient Slavs - glod, in the times of Kievan Rus - boyarka, in Azerbaijan the bush is called emishan, in Kyrgyzstan - bazarsha, in Moldova - paduchel, in Armenia - tsrptkin, in Georgia - kuneli, in Kalmykia - tolon.
In Ancient Greece, virgins who dreamed of getting married quickly wove wreaths from the branches of a flowering bush, decorated their hair with them, and then gave them to Hymen, the god of family and marriage. At the same time, the doctor Dioscorides described the properties of the plant and listed all the diseases that could be alleviated with the help of medicines from hawthorn.
In the 14th century, the hawthorn almost fell into disgrace. They tried to treat infectious diseases, toothache and eliminate problems during difficult pregnancies. Fortunately, the healers realized in time that the beneficial properties were limited, and did not mercilessly destroy the growth. Similar attempts to heal all diseases were made by ancient Roman doctors 200-300 years BC, but then medicine was in an even more primitive state.
And already in the 17th century, Peter the Great awarded hawthorn the official title of a medicinal plant and ordered the start of selective selection of bushes with larger fruits and the most pronounced amount of healing properties. Such varieties were grown in the royal gardens, crossing the most successful combinations - bushes with larger and juicier berries, with a pronounced aroma, with berries that have few seeds... Medicines were made from them for the nobility and the fruits were used in the preparation of desserts. Ordinary people collected the berries of wild plants for the same purposes.
Hawthorn, which grows like a tree, has particularly durable wood that can be used to make furniture and souvenirs. And the bushes of bright red hawthorn have strong, long, sharp thorns, which allow the plantings to be used as a living barrier. Such a palisade reliably protects against uninvited guests and performs a decorative function.
Watch a video about hawthorn:
If the hedge is formed correctly and carefully looked after, the bushes will not have to be replanted for 200-250 years! All this time, you can not be afraid of thieves entering your plot and every year you can collect a rich harvest of tasty and healing berries.
This tree is called by different names. As children, we called it “boyarka” and ate its soft orange berries. There are more than a thousand species of this tree on Earth, in Russia there are about fifty, but only ten species are of greatest importance to humans. Hawthorn berries are edible, healthy and pleasant to the taste. In the old days, ground dry berries were added to bread dough to give it a fruity flavor. Hawthorn makes an excellent thorny green hedge, protecting the dacha from uninvited guests from all the parishes for 200-300 years.
The value of hawthorn
Berries
Most types of boyarka produce slightly sour, pleasant and healthy fruits. But there will always be at least one pest in the family. There is one among the hawthorns with the name “doubtful hawthorn”, the berries of which are dangerous for people because they are poisonous.
The berries are rich in active substances, vitamin C (especially in fruits growing in Siberia), carotene, organic acids, carbohydrates, and pectin substances.
They are used to prepare tea, coffee substitute, juice, a drink made with honey and kvass concentrate, and compote. They make mashed potatoes, jam, jam. They make marshmallows, sweets, rub them with sugar, and candied whole berries. When combined with apples, it makes an excellent filling for pies. Hawthorn puree and honey are used to make gravy for pancakes, pancakes and thick porridges.
Seeds
Flowers
Hawthorn flowers are an excellent honey plant, and are also used in medicine for functional disorders of the heart (atrial fibrillation, hypertension - reduce blood pressure).
Juice from fresh flowers is mixed with alcohol (1:2) and infused for 15 days. Then take it three times a day, adding forty drops to a tablespoon of water. Or an infusion of 3 glasses of boiling water and 3 tablespoons of flowers is drunk a day in three doses for glaucoma, suffocation, dizziness, and heart disease.
Leaves
Hawthorn leaves contain a number of acids, quercetin (has anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, decongestant effects. Also found in onions, lemons), vitexin rhamnoside (close to glucose esters), essential oil.
Bark
Hawthorn bark is rich in the glycoside esculin (krategin).
Contraindications for use
Although hawthorn is not toxic (with the exception of dubious hawthorn), it is better to avoid it if there is increased blood clotting, heart arrhythmia, low blood pressure, during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Several types of hawthorn
* Blood red or Siberian th - a shrub up to 4 meters high, or a thin-trunked tree up to 6 meters. Most often it has spines up to 5 centimeters long.
In May-June it is covered with dense white brushes of flowers. Brownish or blood-red, sometimes orange-yellow berries of a spherical or slightly oval shape.
Likes fertile soils with average moisture. Tolerates drought and is frost-resistant. It grows slowly, berries appear at 10-15 years of age.
The wood is used to make cuttings of shovels and percussion instruments, and household utensils. Suitable as a rootstock for dwarf apple and pear trees.
* Prickly- strong spines up to 2.5 centimeters long make trees 3.5-8 meters high a valuable species for green hedges. Widely distributed throughout the country, easy to cut and shape.
In May-June it is covered with sparse shields of white or pinkish inflorescences. Red, yellow or whitish berries of a spherical or oblong shape contain 2-3 seeds inside and ripen in August.
The wood, white with a red tint, lends itself well to polishing and is used in engraving, not inferior in quality to boxwood wood.
Prefers clayey, heavy soils. It strengthens river slopes well, preventing landslides.
* Doubtful- its berries are tasty, but cause poisoning if you eat a lot of them. How to bypass it?
Firstly, it grows only along the middle reaches of the Volga and Don, so residents of other regions need not be afraid of encountering it.
Secondly, its shoots are prickly and not everyone wants to mess with it. Its berries are purple-black with light dots, almost spherical in shape.
Autumn pleases everyone with magical colors. One of the amazing plants that lights up with scarlet lights in the fall is the blood-red hawthorn. However, this plant is beautiful in its own way at any time of the year, and its fruits are also used for medicinal purposes. Today we will talk about this representative of the Rosaceae, find out why it is so valued, and whether it can be grown as a cultivated plant. And colorful photos will help illustrate the description of the lady berry: a plant that is easy to care for and has a lot of useful qualities.
Hawthorn usually grows as a bushy tree about 5 meters high. However, there are also tall trees reaching 12 meters in height. Blood-red hawthorn begins to bear fruit 7 years after planting. And more than one generation will be pleased with the harvest, because this plant lives up to 400 years, and bears fruit for almost its entire life. In this photo there is a bush dotted with blood-red fruits.
The photo shows the rich colors of the fruits of this plant. The blood-scarlet berries ripen by September. By this time they have grown to 1-2 cm in diameter. These fruits are edible, but have a specific tart taste. They are collected in September-October, preferably until they are fully ripe.
However, even during the flowering period, this shrub cannot leave anyone indifferent. Lady berry blooms in late spring and blooms until the end of June. At the very beginning of flowering, you can collect unopened buds, then they are dried and used to prepare medicines. Look at the following photo: usually hawthorn blooms with white flowers, but the blood-red variety has purple inflorescences.
Wild hawthorn shrubs can be found in plantings, on forest edges, along the outskirts of steppe areas, in mountain valleys and above river canals. Knowing about the strong medicinal properties of lady berry, people cultivated this plant and planted it in garden plots.
Lady-berry on the site
This frost-resistant plant is most often found in the forest-steppe zone in Central Russia. It takes root best on sandy and pebble soil. However, in places where the groundwater is too deep, or, conversely, there is frequent flooding, the blood-red hawthorn may die. Actually, this is the only obstacle to the successful cultivation of this shrub: planting will be successful even on infertile soil.
Landing
To plant a lady-berry on your site, use seeds or cuttings, and sometimes graft the plant. Planting is desirable in sunny areas, then the blood-red hawthorn will bloom and bear fruit well. The next photo shows the process of planting a seedling.
You need to add drainage to the dug hole; crushed stone and even pieces of broken brick are perfect for this. The thickness of the drainage layer should be about 15 centimeters. A mixture of soil with humus, wood ash, peat and sand will feed the roots well. You can also use lime when planting, but make sure that the roots do not touch it, otherwise the blood-red hawthorn may die.
If you decide to plant several bushes at once, place them at a distance of at least two meters from each other. This is due to the fact that the hawthorn, growing, spreads its branches far around the trunk. The seedling is placed in a hole to a depth of half a meter, and is constantly watered for two weeks so that the rhizomes are well established in the soil.
Care
What is especially pleasing is that blood-red hawthorn does not require special care. It grows well in unfertilized soils and can withstand droughts and severe frosts. Therefore, the plant has another name - Siberian hawthorn (in the photo - a tree of the Rosaceae family in a snowy winter). And yet, having settled the lady-berry on your plot, you need to adhere to some rules for caring for the bush.
In order for the hawthorn to grow and delight you with luxurious branches, periodically cut off dried branches and remove weeds. In spring and autumn, it is recommended to loosen the soil, but not deeply; it is enough to dig 15 centimeters deep. Experts do not recommend watering the bush too often. In dry weather, water twice a month, using 13 liters of water per bush. These simple rules of care will help you enjoy your first harvest of healthy fruits in just a few years.
Useful properties of the plant
Humanity has long noticed that hawthorn has a healing effect on the body. For medicinal preparations, not only berries are used, but also inflorescences and even tree bark. It is not for nothing that this plant is called a “heart friend” - it contains substances that tone the cardiovascular system more than any other variety of hawthorn. Flavonoids and tannins dilate blood vessels and improve the functioning of blood vessels. However, at the same time it reduces elevated heart rate and blood pressure.
The essential oils contained in hawthorn fruits have an antispasmodic effect on the brain and other organs and have a calming effect on the nervous system. Ladyberry is rich in vitamin C, so you can drink tea from it during seasonal colds to protect your immune system from viruses. The photo shows one of the options for preparing herbal tea, which was based not only on the fruits, but also on the leaves of a medicinal plant.
This amazing plant is effective for many diseases. Although many people only know about the healing effects on the heart muscle, in fact the range of applications is much greater. So, hawthorn-based products will be useful for the following diseases:
- diabetes;
- atherosclerosis;
- rheumatism;
- obesity;
- ovarian diseases.
By the way, lady berry is useful not only for people, but also for animals. In veterinary medicine, this plant is used to improve blood circulation in pets. And the nectar collected by bees from a flowering hawthorn makes honey very useful. The photo shows a bee collecting nectar from flowers.
Like any medicine, hawthorn has its contraindications. This mainly relates to the frequency of application. If you drink too much hawthorn infusion or tea, or use it for too long without any special indications, you may get the opposite effect instead of benefit. The main description of side effects from taking hawthorn is nausea, vomiting, dizziness and other unpleasant sensations.
Pregnant women and nursing mothers are not recommended to take hawthorn-based medications. Hawthorn can also worsen the well-being of hypotensive patients. If you still want to try berries as a medicinal plant, consult a therapist: he will suggest a harmless dosage and form of the medicine.
Photo gallery
Photo 1. Hawthorn berries in a spoon Photo 2. Flowering Siberian hawthorn Photo 3. Fruits on bare branches
Video “Hawthorn - benefits for the body”
In this video, watch an episode of a TV show about a tasty and healthy autumn berry.
There is such an amazing plant - hawthorn blood red. A small shrub or tree with a specific, pleasant smell used in folk medicine to treat heart diseases. There is perhaps no other plant that is more useful for treating heart disease.
At the end of May - beginning of June, he dresses in a white outfit tree lady, or boyarka. From other flowering trees and shrubs, hawthorn ( Crataegus L) is easily distinguished by its prickly shoots and the characteristic unpleasant odor of its white flowers, collected in corymbose or umbellate inflorescences. The name hawthorn in Latin means “strong”, “strong”.
Hawthorn is a long-known, widespread and extremely useful plant in our country. Hawthorn, whose properties are well known not only to doctors, has hundreds of species. They belong to the Hawthorn genus and the Rose family and are short and prickly bushes and trees, flowering in late May and bearing fruit in September. The most famous types of hawthorn in our country include: Blood-red hawthorn (another name is Siberian), Ukrainian hawthorn, Prickly hawthorn, Pentapaltic hawthorn.
Blood red hawthorn - this species is most widespread (Europe, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Far East).The fruits of hawthorn are red, less often red-yellowish, with mealy pulp. Hawthorn blooms in May-June. Flowers and leaves are collected during flowering and quickly dried. Grows in light bushes, in hedges and along fences, on sunny slopes and in deciduous and pine forests. The dry mixture should be stored in well-closed containers. Since the effectiveness is lost if stored for too long, flowers should be collected every year if possible. Hawthorn fruits are picked ripe, when they are already turning red, and quickly dried. They should also be collected anew every year.
During flowering, hawthorn looks similar to an apple tree, but its flowers are smaller, white or pinkish, with large anthers, which, depending on the species, can be yellow, pink or purple-red. The flowers contain dimethylamine, a substance that gives them the characteristic smell of stale fish.
The fruits of hawthorns - a small apple - are spherical, pear-shaped, elongated; with one or several (up to 5) large, very strong triangular bones. These seeds are located near the calyx at the top of the fruit and are slightly covered with skin. The color of the fruit depends on the type and variety; it can be pale orange-yellow, red, bright orange, or less often almost black. The size of the fruits varies as much as their color. In blood-red hawthorn they are only 5-7 mm in diameter, and in large-fruited American species they are almost 3, less often 4 cm.
Hawthorn medicinal use
Hawthorn has healing flowers, fruits, leaves, and bark.Hawthorn fruits are a strong sedative. They act not only on the central nervous system, but also dilate blood vessels, affect the contraction of the heart muscle, lower blood pressure, and help reduce cholesterol.
Hawthorn is widely used for cardiovascular failure, angina pectoris, atrial fibrillation, paroxysmal tachycardia, extrasystole, circulatory disorders in the vessels of the heart and brain, and in the treatment of atherosclerosis, especially during menopause. Hawthorn is sometimes necessary with thyrotoxicosis, increased thyroid function, high blood pressure, dizziness, tinnitus, insomnia, increased nervous excitability, shortness of breath. A decoction of the bark is used for fever, a decoction of the fruit is used for leukemia. Juice from may leaves can serve as an elixir for prolonging life.
Contraindications
Long-term and uncontrolled use of hawthorn preparations can cause depression of heart rate. Decoctions and tinctures should not be taken on an empty stomach, but only half an hour to an hour after meals. If you drink them on an empty stomach, you can provoke vasospasm, intestinal spasm, and sometimes vomiting. After taking hawthorn, you should not immediately drink cold water - this will cause intestinal colic. You can remove them with caraway seeds, dill, celery. Hawthorn fruits in large quantities can cause mild poisoning. Unripe fruits are especially harmful.
Folk recipes using hawthorn
Basically, tinctures and decoctions are prepared from hawthorn
The use of hawthorn tincture has found wide application in folk medicine, in particular in the treatment of certain diseases.
Hawthorn tincture is used for diseases such as incipient hypertension, with cardiac weakness, angioneurosis, with insomnia in heart patients. Hawthorn tincture reduces the excitability of the central nervous system, increases cardiac blood flow and cerebral circulation, relieves arrhythmia and tachycardia. It is also used for cardiac weakness, vegetative-vascular dystonia and hyperthyroidism.
Hawthorn tincture is prepared as follows:
take 2 tablespoons of hawthorn flowers along with leaves, pour in 100 ml of vodka or 70% alcohol and leave for 14 days in a warm, dark place. We filter the resulting infusion, and now it is ready for use. Take 30 drops 3 times a day half an hour before meals.
Contraindications: this tincture is not recommended for children under 16 years of age and pregnant women.
Hawthorn(Crataegus), popular names: lady, boyarka, glod.
Botanical description
Characteristics of appearance: the plant may look like a fairly tall shrub or a small tree. The shoots are brown and have spines.
The leaves range from two to six centimeters in length; the shape of the leaf blade varies, but is usually lobed. The leaf blades sit on petioles, the leaf arrangement is regular.
Hawthorn flowers are white and small, collected in corymbose inflorescences.
The fruits have a diameter of six to ten millimeters. Their shape is spherical or slightly ellipsoidal, the taste is sweet and sour, the flesh is mealy. Flowering occurs in May and June, and fruit ripening occurs at the end of August - beginning of September.
Types of hawthorn
There are several types of hawthorns growing in our country. Common hawthorn (Crataegus oxyacantha) does not grow wild. It is grown in gardens and parks. Among those growing in the wild, bloody hawthorn (Crataegus sanguinea) is widespread and actively used.
Habitat
Hawthorn usually grows along the banks of reservoirs and on the edges. It can be found in ravines and other places inconvenient for the growth of large trees. Hawthorn is often found in gardens and parks; it is used as a hedge and as an ornamental plant. The quality of the soil is not important for hawthorn. It is very unpretentious, which has allowed various species to spread so widely across Europe, Asia and North America.
Application
Red hawthorn and many other types of hawthorns have many beneficial properties for the human body. It has vasodilating and antispasmodic effects.
Hawthorn normalizes vascular tone and improves blood supply to all organs, this is especially important for the brain and heart. The permeability of the walls of blood vessels decreases, the cholesterol level in the blood decreases, and the sugar level normalizes.
Hawthorn preparations can prevent neurological diseases, alleviate their course and cure them. They can improve brain function and memory. All these beneficial properties are actively used in the treatment of a number of diseases.
Medicinal properties of hawthorn
All the variety of properties allows hawthorn to be actively used for medicinal purposes. Preparations from various parts of the plant are used for diseases of the cardiovascular system. If there are functional disorders, cardiac weakness during the rehabilitation period or hypertension in the early stages, then hawthorn is used as a cardiotonic.
Preparations from parts of the plant tone the heart muscle and blood vessels, improve blood circulation and general condition, and with their help eliminate arrhythmia, tachycardia and various unpleasant sensations in the heart area.
Remedies prepared from hawthorn also have a positive effect on the central nervous system. With their help, excitability is reduced and insomnia is eliminated.
Composition of hawthorn
Hawthorn has a number of beneficial properties, which depend on the chemical composition of the parts used for medicinal purposes.
Hawthorn fruits contain a large amount of simple carbohydrates, most often fructose. Their total number can reach ten percent. The amount of sugars ranges from four to eleven percent. The berries contain organic acids, such as citric and tartaric.
Hawthorn fruits contain a large number of flavonoids: apigenin, quercetin, herbacetin and some others. These substances have a positive effect on blood vessels. Berries contain triterpene and phenylcarboxylic acids, glycosides and fatty acids, fatty oils, vitamins and other biologically active substances.
Hawthorn flowers contain a large amount of flavonoids, quercitrin, hyperoside and some others are present. It contains acids – chlorogenic and caffeic. Essential oils, choline, acetylcholine and trimethylcholine are present.
Collection and preparation
Many parts of the plant are medicinal raw materials.
Flowers and leaves of hawthorn, as well as fruits, are harvested. Flowers are harvested in the first half of flowering, until they are all fully opened. Flowering time is limited to just a few days. They should not be collected in wet weather or until the dew has disappeared, otherwise they will turn dark during drying.
Dry in ventilated areas, in the shade.
Hawthorn fruits are harvested when they are fully ripe. Dry in natural conditions, if the weather permits, since complete drying requires heat. If there are no conditions, then you can use an oven or a special dryer that heats up to fifty degrees.
Hawthorn contraindications
Hawthorn remedies can bring not only benefits, but also harm, so when using them, you should not violate the instructions. People with low blood pressure should not be treated with hawthorn. It is worth remembering that there are conditions that limit its use. You should not take hawthorn remedies on an empty stomach, as intestinal spasms and vomiting are possible.
Recipes
- Recipe for hawthorn tincture with alcohol from fresh berries. One glass of berries is mashed with a masher and poured with a glass of alcohol. The container is tightly closed and placed in a dark place. It should be infused for three weeks at normal room temperature. Shaking the composition is required daily. After three weeks, the tincture is filtered and stored in a dark glass container.
- Decoction of hawthorn fruits. Two tablespoons of dry berries are crushed and placed in a glass or enamel container. Pour boiling water over it, then maintain a low simmer for ten minutes. Leave for half an hour and strain. Store in the refrigerator and take before meals.
- Infusion of hawthorn (flowers). A tablespoon of dried flowers is crushed and poured with boiling water, placed in a glass container or enamel bowl. Leave for fifteen minutes, then filter and take half a glass before meals three times a day.
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