Wild strawberry |
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Wild strawberries have another amazing adaptation - water gaps on the leaves to remove excess water from the plant, which does not evaporate quickly enough.
The berries contain sugars, malic, citric, quinic acids, fiber, red pigment, iron, phosphorus, calcium, manganese, cobalt, tannins and pectin substances, vitamins of groups B and C, folic acid, carotene, etc. Due to the high iron content, fresh fruits are recommended for anemia and nursing mothers.
Strawberries quench the thirst experienced by patients after heavy surgeries well, increase appetite and stimulate digestion. Fresh berries are useful for heart diseases, atherosclerosis, hypertension, stomach ulcers, gallstones and urolithiasis, gout, anemia. The use of berries is especially advisable in case of salt metabolism disorders. It is not for nothing that folk healers claim that in the house where they eat strawberries and blueberry, they and the doctors have nothing to do. True, strawberries are contraindicated for some people who are hypersensitive to its fruits, which cause allergies.
Crushed berries or fresh juice in rural areas are used for wounds of the skin and eczema, and sometimes as a cosmetic against freckles, spots and eels... When oily skin with enlarged pores apply masks from a mixture of strawberry juice and beaten egg white.
S. G. Andreev |
Of all the forest berries of central Russia, the most remarkable is the forest strawberry (Fragaria vesca L.). The Latin name of the genus Fragaria comes from the word fragare - "to smell sweet" and is given for the aroma of the fruit. The word vesca - purely prosaic - means "edible".
The flowers of the plant are correct, white. The calyx consists of two five-membered circles. Sepals with fruits are bent downwards. There are many stamens and pistils - you can't count them right away. The leaves are trifoliate on long petioles, below with silky hairs. Filiform creeping shoots easily root at the nodes. Growth 8-15 cm. All this is easy to check in May - June, when the strawberries bloom. And it is easy to find it in fields, ravine slopes, fallow lands, bushes, on forest edges and clearings, in the European part of the country - everywhere up to 60-65 ° north latitude. They know her in Siberia, the Caucasus and the Tien Shan mountains.
If you observe the flowers, you can easily see that flies, bees and beetles willingly visit them. Insects fly from one flower to another, cross-pollinate them. If there are no pollinating insects, strawberries self-pollinate. After fertilization, the flowers droop and do not rise again. This is probably why the "berries" (botanists call them "false") are also drooping, hanging.
The so-called berries are an overgrown fleshy and juicy receptacle. Numerous fruitlets are immersed in it - small yellowish achenes. These "berries" are a delicacy not only for people, but also for birds. The latter carry the fruit with excrement over a long distance. They are not digested in the digestive tract; moreover, having passed it, they acquire increased germination energy and germination capacity. Strawberries are still propagated by "whiskers" - aerial shoots. Coming out of the axils of trifoliate leaves, such whiskers (up to 150 cm long) take root and give rise to new independent plants. The roots developing on the whiskers are capable of pulling in the stem nodes.
In the south, the leaves remain green throughout the winter, in the middle lane they can also hibernate alive under the snow, but they die in frosts in a snowless winter. Intensive growth of new leaves occurs in spring and in the second half of summer after ripening of the berries. In August - early September, rudimentary peduncles are laid at the points of growth of the stems, which winter in "hearts" under the cover of young folded leaves. In the spring, the flower stalks start to grow.
Wild strawberries are eaten fresh and processed: they are used to prepare 
Juice and water infusions have a diaphoretic and diuretic effect. Strawberry phytoncides pass into water infusions, killing many types of pathogenic microbes. They are used for rinsing with inflammatory diseases of the mucous membranes of the mouth and larynx. Even more phytoncides in the juice.
The leaves and rhizomes of strawberries have healing properties. Revealed their diuretic and, due to the content of tannins, astringent action. Aqueous infusions of the leaves are used for gargling and for cosmetic purposes. In folk medicine, infusions and decoctions of leaves and rhizomes are used for jaundice, tuberculosis, urolithiasis, edema, old ulcers, rashes, bleeding, for rinsing with tonsillitis, for hemorrhoids, colitis and dysentery (in the last three cases, decoctions from rhizomes are preferred). Fresh or steamed leaves are used to treat old ulcers, purulent wounds and some forms of eczema. Applying them to the affected areas leads to rapid cleansing of ulcers and wounds from pus and healing.
For pharmacies, ripe undamaged fruits are harvested, and certainly in dry weather. Dried in dryers, and in the absence of them - in well-heated Russian ovens. Dried fruits should retain their original bright red color and not decay.
Until the 17th century. wild strawberry was widespread in culture; currently supported mainly by amateurs. It is planted with seedlings in late August - early September with row spacing of 12-15 or 20-25 cm, in low places - on ridges 60-70 cm wide. , in a row - 15-20) or one-line (between rows 60-70 cm, in a row - 15-20). Planting strawberries is timed to coincide with cloudy or rainy weather.
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