Shepherd's bag - description and healing properties

There is a popular belief that very long ago a shepherd named Lel grazed his flock and forgot his bag in the field. After a while a plant grew up in its place, which was called a shepherd's bag, indeed its pod looks very much like a shepherd's bag in its appearance. In the middle of the pod there is a peculiar seam, so it is practically impossible to confuse the plant with any other.

Shepherd's Bag - description of the plant

In the people this plant has, in addition to its well-known name and many others, the most common are: heart grass, wild flax, grass spurge, grandmother, handbag, eyes, arrows, grytsy, sparrow's eye, buckwheat field, handbag ordinary, ruffian eye, purse , A bagman shepherd, a swan, a girchak, a money-lover, a bar, hearts, a savage.

The shepherd's bag is an annual plant of the cabbage family. It has a thin stem stem with a height of up to 45 centimeters, and, when favorable conditions are created, up to 80 cm, and a branchy spindle-like root. The basal leaves are pinnately divided, and the stem leaves are arrow-shaped.

The plant blooms for a long period, which can be from the beginning of spring to the beginning of autumn. If favorable weather conditions, then the shepherd's bag can blossom in November. If from above the plant can still blossom, then in its lower part fruits are already formed. After ripening the fruit opens, and many small yellow-brown seeds emerge from it.

A shepherd's bag is widely distributed throughout Ukraine, the European part of Russia and other European countries, as well as in Japan and China. She chooses places for herself along the roadsides, on arable land, in courtyards, gardens and parks, on slopes, wastelands, pastures, along ditches, in kitchen gardens. Although the plant loves fertile soils, it can also grow on the pavement and even on the walls of houses.

Shepherd's bag - application of a plant in folk medicine

Nowadays, most people undeservedly consider this plant a weed. Previously, the shepherd's bag was used not only in medicine, but also in cooking. In its composition, the plant has lemon, wine, fumaric, malic acid, as well as many vitamins, choline, organic acids, acetylcholine, phytoncides, flavonoids, saponins, glycosides, tannins, resins, potassium, phosphorus and calcium salts. This plant is known since the time of Hippocrates and was used in the treatment of diseases of the uterus.

In Indian folk medicine, preparations from this plant are used as diuretic, antiscorbutic, astringent agents, and also as antiemetics.

Shepherd's bag has a strong hemostatic effect. Due to this property, it is used when stopping uterine, gastrointestinal, renal and pulmonary hemorrhages. In many cases, due to its effectiveness, this plant is in no way inferior to expensive drugs that are used in obstetric practice and gynecology.

In addition to all this, the shepherd's bag renders wound healing, antiseptic, blood-cleansing, analgesic, diuretic and choleretic action, the preparations in which it is included lower the pressure. In the seeds of the plant there is a lot of fatty and essential oil.

As a medicine, the grass is harvested from spring to autumn.

Our folk medicine also widely uses this plant for the preparation of decoctions, which are used in the treatment of metabolic disorders, diarrhea, liver and kidney diseases, bladder diseases, hepatic colic, during incontinence. They also help in the presence of gout, rheumatism, in the treatment and prevention of sclerosis, with fever and renal colic.