Common bird cherry.

Bird cherry

A tree or shrub of the Rosaceae family, 0.6-10 m high. The leaves are petiolate, alternate, with a serrated blade along the edge. The flowers are white, collected in drooping racemes.

Blooms in May-June. The seeds ripen in August-September.

Bird cherry is common in the European part of Russia, Western Siberia and Central Asia.

It grows along river banks, forest edges, floodplain meadows, mixed forests, among bushes and ravines.

The fruits are consumed fresh and dried. For filling pies and cheesecakes, preparing cakes and jelly, the fruits are crushed. They are used to make jelly and soft drinks. Bird cherry is food for reindeer, sheep, goats, moose, beavers, and muskrats, but its leaves are poisonous to geese.

Medicinal raw materials are fruits, leaves, bark and flowers. The fruits are collected when ripe, dried in the sun and dried in a dryer or oven at a temperature of 70-80°C. The flowers are collected during flowering and actively dried in the shade or under a canopy.

Bird cherry preparations have an astringent, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antiemetic effect, and have a detrimental effect on protozoa.

An infusion of the fruit is used to treat inflammatory diseases of the mucous membrane of the eyes. An infusion of flowers regulates metabolism and is useful for pulmonary tuberculosis and gangrene of the extremities.