Calamus

Family Araceae - Acorus calamus - perennial herb 60-120 cm tall. Rhizome thick, up to 50 cm long, knotty inside the white, soft, spongy, the top yellow or yellow-green, the taste of cucumber-pekuchy, the smell of it pleasant. Stem near base with a reddish purple hue, flowers are collected in a thick, fleshy inflorescence - the beginning, which is popularly known as "headed cabbages. Leaflets with expressive identified veins, sword-shaped, linear, acute, fleshy. Fruit - an oblong dry berry. In the middle belt does not ripen. Flowers in June.
Growing throughout Ukraine and Central Russia, except the Carpathians and wormwood steppes and standing waters around the shores of rivers, ponds, swamps, places large thickets. Gather roots, digging forks, autumn or early spring, they are washed in cold water, sorted, cut into small pieces and dried.
Applied calamus as a tonic for the oppression of the central nervous system in diseases gastrointestinal tract , sluggish digestion (increases the excitability of taste endings and salivation), diarrhea, as diuretic tool, with biliary tract diseases, kidney stones ; as anti-inflammatory tool for malaria. Also, when disruption of the menstrual cycle in women for its regulation, with nervous disorders with convulsions, chronic diseases of the spinal cord with loss of sensitivity, with tachycardia. Use in the form of tea. For this purpose, 1 cup cold water 1 teaspoon give minced calamus root, bring to a boil and boil 10 minutes. Drink (depending on needs) 1-3 cups a day with sips rheumatism , edema , pale weakness , violation of the menstrual cycle in women. For the regulation of the intestines brewed 2 tablespoons of mixture of calamus root, valerian root, buckthorn bark, peppermint leaf Cold and nettles (in the ratio 1:1:3:2:3) in 2 cups water for 10 minutes, filter through gauze and drink half a cup of morning and evening.
The juice of the root taken to improve vision, for improve memory and to get rid of the habit of smoking (causes vomiting). Instead of broth to drink alcohol tincture calamus root in the ratio 1:5 - 10-30 drops three times a day with water or a lump of sugar, the same infusion rinse their mouths with a toothache. When heartburn drink powder (0,3-0,5) from the rhizomes of calamus, three times a day for 2-3 g (reduces fermentation in the gut; anesthetic and analgesic mucous membranes). This powder may also be applied externally. Him asleep purulent wounds and ulcers. To gargle for laryngitis ( sore throat , hoarseness ) and glositi (inflammation of the tongue with swelling, fractures, fever and difficulty swallowing) using broth from the mixture calamus rhizome , leaf sage , oak and large nettle leaf (all equally). The broth is prepared to rinse well. They take 1 tablespoon of mixture into 1 cup of cold water, cook in a covert vessel for 10 minutes. This broth rinse the throat and mouth three times a day when scurvy and amphodontosis .
Decoction of a mixture of rhizomes calamus , burdock root (one handful) and hop cones normal (two handfuls) - 3-4 liters of water -- wash head with hair loss , dandruff twice a week.
Fresh sheets calamus act as a means of insecticidal against fleas and other insects.

White Birch - Betula alba L.

BIRCH WHITE (furry) - Birch Bila (puhnasta) Betula alba L.

Family Betulaceae - Betulaceae
White Birch - slender tree to 20 m tall, with drooping branches and gladenkoy white bark. The old birches at the bottom of the trunk is dark gray with cracks. Leaflets rhombic-ovate or triangular-ovate, near the base shirokoklinovidnye, sometimes almost sertsevidnye. Flowers male, pubescent, gathered at the ends of branches in catkins 5-6 cm long (2-3 earrings), the fruit - nut with two wings, which are 2-3 times wider than the fruit. Blossoms in May, seeds ripen in July - August .
growing for almost the whole territory of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Usually forms the arrays in the forest and steppe zones, grows snowdrops, wet meadows.
gather buds in spring, when they have not disbanded and sticky from the resinous substances. Dried in the cold at a temperature no higher than 15-20 °. Later (in June - July) collect the sheets. Early spring collect birch sap (birch). Apply in avitaminosis Infusion of leaves. When gout , rheumatism , to cleanse the blood at eczema , deprives , eruptions on the body , with itching of the body . Also, when stomach ulcer , are hard to swallow it, when bronchitis and tracheitis , as expectorant and disinfectant . Used against small * roundworm ( pinworms and roundworm ); in postpartum (starting from 12 th day ) to accelerate the purification, with obesity , to increase metabolism ; with edema of renal origin and with stones ( diuretic and choleretic action ) - kidney , of which prepare tea or alcohol tincture. Use in the form of tea. In 1 cup boiling water 1 teaspoon taking kidneys, a little boiled and insist 2 hours. Drink 2 cups a day sips. Instead of tea you can drink alcohol tincture, 15-20 drops three times a day on the spoon of water (half a liter of 70% alcohol poured half a cup of kidney and insist on them for 14 days, then run off, filtered and poured into the bottle). Use when atherosclerosis , edema , are hard to swallow , even if cholera (against vomiting). Alcohol tincture of birch buds are very effective in the treatment of gastric ulcers. To do this an hour after meal drink a tablespoon of liqueur, Fiz 20-30 gr. pure butter. After this 4 hour will consume food and liquids.
Infusion from kidney sear mosquito bites, and then passes decreases itching and redness and swelling.
Infusion of young birch leaves drink at heart swelling as diuretic and diaphoretic means the allocation of protein in the urine, mochevokislom diathesis , as well as rheumatism . Fresh sheets washed with cold boiled water, the water is drained, flyers pour hot boiling water at a temperature of 40-50 °, and insist on for 3,5 hours. Leaflets squeeze, infusion give stand for 6 hours, separated from the sediment. Then there is the infusion of up to 155 mg% vitamin C . Use of 50, 100, 200 ml infusions three times a day, usually before a meal.
Birch juice drink to 3 or more cups a day for "recovery" of blood at skin diseases - deprives , eruptions on the body, with furunculosis , angina . Also, when anemia after the injury, with poorly healing wounds, ulcers , diseases that are accompanied by high temperature. When bronchitis , bronchiectasis , pulmonary tuberculosis, rheumatism , gout , arthritis , scurvy . It acts as an expectorant , diuretic , displays the body of harmful substances, helps with cardiac edema .
Externally use with eczema (compresses) and in cosmetics: in acne and pigmented spots face wash them.
Abraded in powder birch charcoal used in poisoning poisons and bacterial toxins, with flatulence , colitis , increased acidity of gastric juice - 1 teaspoon of powder three times a day, drinking water (or stirred with water).
The tar kills scabies mites in the skin - rub on the body at night for 3 days (before bedtime). At the 4 th day take a bath and change his clothes and linens.
alcohol tincture is used for rubbing and compresses when rheumatism , pains in the joints, at bedsores , scratches , wounds that do not heal. Externally use sheets for hot tubs in the treatment of acute and chronic eczema, herpes , with sweating feet, as well as rheumatism . A handful of leaflets cook 10 minutes in 4 liters of water, broth is used for baths. Steaming fresh leaves are used for compresses and poultices. In the first case imposes a deep tub of fresh birch leaves, cover it and when it is warmed by heat allocated, the patient buried in it for an hour or more (how many survive) on the neck or belt ( "dry" bath). In another case, the dried leaves, scalded with boiling water (or powdered raw) obkladyvayut affected sites of hands and feet ( hydrocephalus , rheumatism , gout , paralysis ), pulled on them stockings and tape up on the possibility of denser ( "sogrevatelnye stockings »).