Three-Leaf Watch, Or Water Trefoil.

Watch three-leaf, or Water trefoil: Description, Medicinal Properties and Applications

Three-leaved watch (lat. Menyanthes trifoliata), also known as water trefoil, is a perennial herbaceous plant of the watch family, up to 30 cm high. This plant is distributed throughout almost the entire territory of the European part of Russia, in Western and Eastern Siberia and in the Far East. The three-leaf moth prefers swamps, reservoirs with shallow waters and marshy shores, swampy meadows and forms large thickets.

The rhizome of the trifoliate is long and creeping, and the leaves are simple, trifoliate, long-petiolate, with elliptical segments, coming directly from the rhizome. In May-June, the three-leaved watch blooms with pale pink or white flowers in an oblong raceme located on a leafless arrow. The fruit is a capsule that opens with two doors, which ripens in July-August.

The leaves of the tamarind are used as medicinal raw materials. They are collected during the period of budding, flowering and fruiting without petioles. To keep the leaves green, they are air dried in the shade, then in a dryer. The leaves contain bitter glycosides (menianthine and meliatin), the alkaloid gentianine, flavone glycosides (rutin and hyperoside), vitamin C (up to 110 mg%), as well as choline, fatty oil, linoleic and palmitic fatty acids, tannins, iodine and other connections.

When taken orally, the bitter substances in the leaves have an anti-inflammatory and moderate laxative effect, increase the secretion of glands, improve digestion, and stimulate the secretion of bile. An infusion of three-leaf watch is prescribed for gastritis with low acidity, constipation and flatulence (accumulation of gases in the intestines). This plant is part of appetizing, sedative, laxative, choleretic and diuretic preparations.

Trefoil preparations are used as an antiseptic for washing trophic ulcers, fresh and poorly healing wounds, and for various diseases of the skin and mucous membranes. The infusion has antipyretic and anthelmintic effects. For chronic