Shortly before the arrival of cold weather with the freezing of the soil and the first newly-fallen snow with her snow apparel I go to the familiar lowland forest for medicinal roots of galangal, or, as it is they call people, usica.
It is at this time gaining underground parts of the plant the greatest therapeutic effect.
The road is not close, but I always prefer walking the course. Have time to think about the immediate and eternal. Even a faithful companion — the dog, mincing ahead and sugibayashi noisy jays, not too distracting. Meditate-reflect, but under legs and don’t forget to keep an eye. Occasionally come across on oak stumps last mushrooms. Mostly overgrown and not all dive. Spotted on a fallen aspen family of oyster mushrooms, but these youthful and exuberant, with a vigorous forest smell, that stood near them a quarter of an hour. Spotted this place on the trail bitch criss-cross for a guide laid out. Turn the oyster mushrooms will be on the way back…
Well, I am in a secret place. Parted oaks and birch, formed in the lowlands adjacent to wetlands, a vast meadow. Rustling faded, lost korichnevato and yellow shrunken, become the impersonal grey foliage. Ignorant of the hard to find peek-a-Boo in her grass and galangal.
The scientific name of this medicinal of wild plants — erect cinquefoil. And he belongs to the family Rosaceae, but the generic name of this representative of the flora, if translated from Latin, means “power” or “strength”.
Traditional folk medicine used USEC in the treatment of almost all gastrointestinal diseases and disorders. You name it… I, for example, has successfully used decoctions of the rhizomes of Potentilla during Hiking, fishing, hunting as fast improvised (or rather, grazing) means to stop minor bleeding and anesthesia burns and associates. And all because of the unusual chemical composition and many years of rhizomes in the first place — tannins.
In the old days a bean harvested in the winter from various ailments lived in Il near the forest farmers. From generation to generation the knowledge about the properties of the medicinal marijuana were passed. And I first found out about the bloodroot is not printed, and even at the age of ten when he got sick with tonsillitis, the guest of relatives in a remote village in Smolensk. For a couple of days constant rinse decoction of galangal brought down the temperature and eliminate the symptoms of the disease. And this… without any antibiotics!
…Proceed to the most important tasks — digging. In order in my backpack stashed small sapper shovel. Not everyone discovered the Bush can be uprooted, you have to choose only those where there are more than a dozen shrivelled stems, which indicates a significant multi-year age healer and large, a baby’s fist, the size of the rhizome.
Doing the first digging, and here too the action proceeds amavasya useless running dog. Dog, mongrel dog, and a Rottweiler, strong legs deepens Prokop, and it only remains for me to clear the bizarre forms of underground growth from the adhering soil.
Scoble find a knife, rid the grains of sand, make the cut… don’t hold back in anticipation of a sweet-tart taste of underground healer, sending a piece into his mouth. The extraordinary sense of some forgotten, but re-surging taste sensations long lost dishes came. Sour-sweet, slightly astringent Bud, exuding the smell of lightning and ozone, almost lost varieties of roses, chewed…
I’m not greedy, three dozen rhizomes of Utica Packed in pre-prepared paper bags, put them in a backpack and went back to waiting corticipetal and mushroom the oyster mushrooms…
