Big plantain.

Plantain Great

Perennial herbaceous plant of the plantain family, up to 25 cm high. The root is fibrous, the rhizome is vertical, the shoots are shortened. The leaves are broadly ovate or elliptical, petiolate, entire, with arched veins, collected in a basal rosette.

Blooms from spring to autumn. The flowers are small, grayish-pink, forming an inflorescence-spike. The fruit is an ovoid-conical multi-seeded capsule. Ripens in June.

Great plantain is widespread throughout almost the entire territory of the USSR, with the exception of the Far North. It grows along roadsides, in vacant lots, fields, vegetable gardens, near homes and in ditches.

Introduced into cultivation as a medicinal plant.

Prefers well-fertilized chernozem, light sandy loam or loamy soils. It grows poorly in dry black soil and waterlogged areas.

The best predecessors are legumes and row crops. The soil intended for sowing plantain is dug up to a depth of 20-25 cm and 2-4 kg of manure, 4.5-6 g of phosphorus, 3 g of potassium and nitrogen per 1 m2 are added.

Before winter, the seeds are sown superficially, without planting, sprinkled with a 1-1.5 cm layer of humus. In the spring, with the beginning of sowing early grain crops, to a depth of 1-2 cm and a row spacing of 25-30 cm. Granular superphosphate is added to the furrow. To speed up the emergence of seedlings, the seeds are stratified.

To do this, they are mixed with sand (1:4) and kept for 2 days at a temperature of 18.20°C, after which they are transferred to the cellar or buried in the snow for 1-2 months. Caring for crops consists of loosening the soil and weeding.

The leaves serve as medicinal raw materials. They are collected 1-2 times per season, cutting them with a sickle or scissors at a height of 3-5 cm from the soil level. The first cleaning is carried out at the beginning of flowering, the second - after 2 months.

Dry in the attic, under a canopy or in a dryer at a temperature of 40–50 °C. To obtain seeds, flowering stems are cut at a height of 10-15 cm, dried and threshed.

Leaves are stored in wooden boxes, seeds in well-sealed glass jars for 2 years.

Plantain leaves contain polysaccharides, mucus, glycoside aucubin, flavonoids, vitamins K and C, tannins, bitterness, carotene, choline, steroidal saponins, phytoncides and mineral salts. The seeds contain mucous substances, fatty oils, steroidal saponins, aucubin and oleic acid.

Plantain preparations have anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, wound-healing, expectorant, hemostatic, laxative and moderate blood pressure-lowering effects. They are a reliable antidiarrheal agent (especially the seeds), relax the smooth muscles of the gastrointestinal tract, and eliminate pain resulting from spasm of the smooth muscles of the intestines or stomach.

Juice from fresh plantain leaves is prescribed for chronic gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers with low and normal gastric acidity. It reduces or eliminates pain in the stomach, improves appetite, and increases the acidity of gastric juice. Its therapeutic effect has been established for acute and chronic inflammation of the small and large intestines.

To obtain juice at home, the leaves are cut off with part of the stalk, washed thoroughly in cold running water, allowed to drain, scalded with boiling water, passed through a meat grinder and squeezed through a thick cloth. In hot weather, the juice turns out viscous and thick. In this case, it should be diluted with water 1:1. The resulting juice is boiled for 1-3 minutes.

Take 1 tablespoon 4 times a day 15-20 minutes before meals.

It has been established that plantain juice and preparations made from it have an antimicrobial effect against many pathogenic microbes (staphylococci, streptococci, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, etc.), therefore they are successfully used to treat poorly healing wounds, ulcers, boils, etc. ry