Alder sticky and gray

Alder sticky (Alnus glutinosa L.)

Alder is a tall tree from the Birch family (Betulaceae). Other names: black alder

Description:

A tree of the second size, reaching 20 m in height, or a shrub. The bark is dark brown, cracking; shoots are reddish-brown, sticky; buds on legs, rounded, sticky; leaves obversely broadly ovate or rounded, cuneate at the base, rounded at the apex, often notched, doubly toothed at the edges. Young leaves are sticky, shiny, pale below, 4-10 cm long and 3-7 wide. Staminate flowers in catkins form from autumn; pistillate flowers in short cone-shaped catkins, which also form in autumn and ripen the next autumn, then become woody and crumble to the ground; in the axils of their scales there are nuts with a very narrow wing. Alder blossoms in April. Sticky alder grows in forests as an underbrush or forms alder forests of various types; in the form of a shrub, it always grows along the banks of rivers, lakes, and along the outskirts of swamps.

Gray alder (Alnus incana L.)

Tree 15-20 m tall or shrub, with smooth ash-gray bark; branches with a short gray down, as well as leaves, non-glutinous. Leaves on short pubescent petioles, broadly ovate or elliptical, with a round base and an attenuated-pointed apex, finely dentate along the edge with cartilaginous denticles at the ends, dull green above, glabrous or along the veins with more or less frequent adpressed hairs, gray below. green, covered with short thick velvety down. Unlike sticky alder, fruit catkins are 3-8, sessile, except for the very last one; narrow-winged nuts. It blooms at the end of March. Gray alder sometimes forms pure stands, more often found as a shrub along the edges of forests, country roads, along roads and in lowland meadows mixed with sticky alder.

Harvesting, description of raw materials:

For therapeutic purposes, the seedlings of both types of alder called alder cones – Fructus Alni are used, which are harvested in late autumn and winter and dried in the air or indoors. across. They are collected together in several pieces. on a thin stem, or solitary without stems, or with remnants of stems no more than 1 cm long. Alder seedlings consist of a stem, on which fan-shaped scales with a dark edge densely sit. The color is dark brown or brown, the taste is slightly astringent. Untimely collected cones are recognized by the following signs: early collected green or greenish-brown color with sticky scales; collected in the spring – black-brown, easily turn into powder when rubbed.

Contains active substances:

Alder seedlings contain up to 2.5% tannins and up to 3.7% gallic acid.

Medicinal use:

In medicine, alder fruits are used as an astringent for gastric diseases, acute and chronic enteritis and colitis. In folk medicine, a decoction of seedlings is drunk for diarrhea, dysentery, young fresh leaves are applied to purulent wounds, boils, a decoction of herbs is taken for gastric diseases, a decoction of flower earrings drink and apply to sore spots with diathesis, childhood eczema; a cold sick person is placed in leaves moistened with warm water; alder flower earrings, infused with vodka, are used for hemorrhoids and as a laxative; a decoction of seedlings is also used for diarrhea, dysentery.

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