Name: Bruise zvichayny – common bruise
Common blueberry (Echium vulgare), thunderbolt, rabbit beet, blush; Boraginaceae family; common bruise
This plant is well known to beekeepers, and is sometimes specially sown near apiaries, as it is an excellent honey bearer.
Common blueberry is a two-year herbaceous plant 40-100 cm tall. Its stem has short branches and is covered with gray hairs. The leaves are alternate, entire, grayish below due to dense pubescence. Basal leaves are lanceolate, and stem leaves are linear-lanceolate. The flowers are bisexual, blue (pinkish in buds), collected in an apical tassel. The plant blooms from June to September. The fruit consists of four nuts. The blueberry grows throughout the territory of Ukraine, usually on dry slopes, meadows, along roads, wastelands, weedy places near houses, sometimes it clogs crops of cultivated grasses.
The plant is used only in folk medicine, it is considered moderately poisonous.
For medicinal purposes, the aerial part is collected during the flowering period. The herb contains saponins, alkaloids, fresh leaves contain up to 120 mg% of vitamin C.
Decoction of grass (external). 10 g of raw material per 200 ml of boiling water. Cook in a boiling water bath for 15-20 minutes, filter. Joints are rubbed with liquid, and grass wrapped in gauze is used for poultices.
It must be remembered that an overdose of bruise products is unacceptable!