Sweet clover, beneficial properties and contraindications. Sweet clover

In the kingdom of medicinal plants, sweet clover occupies far from the last place. This herb has long been known for its healing properties. Traditional healers actively use it to treat many diseases. The plant is universal in nature, since it can be used not only for medicinal purposes, but also in the preparation of culinary dishes.

The plant has many other names. People's ingenuity came up with many epithets in relation to him. It is often called trefoil or cross. For its intoxicating properties, it is even called moth grass.

Botanical characteristics

The plant belongs to the representatives that are part of the Legume family. It has a certain intoxicating effect and can even kill bees, at least for sure. Possessing a characteristic odor, the plant attracts these winged insects. Therefore, it is often called honey clover.

Sweet clover grows over a fairly wide area. For its growth it uses forests and steppes. The plant is quite easily recognizable. The reason for this is the characteristic yellow inflorescences. They seem to gather in spikelets and have characteristic aroma, which is typical for freshly cut grass. The plant can reach 1.5 meters in height.

Sweet clover can be white or yellow in color. In fact, there are many more varieties, these are just the most common types. A plant with yellow flowers has medicinal properties. The grains of the plant look like small beans. Flowering yellow type begins somewhat earlier than its white counterpart.

The plant is now successfully cultivated on farm plots, and many grow it in their gardens. Sweet clover propagates using seeds. After planting in the ground, the seeds sprout within 2-3 weeks. The plant loves light and is resistant to low temperatures. In the first year of life, the plant does not bear fruit.

Harvesting is carried out during the flowering period. Inflorescences and leaves are used for collection. You can also collect young shoots. The grass is collected in dry, windless weather. It is better to do this in the morning after the dew has disappeared. Drying is done in air or in a drying cabinet at a temperature of 40 degrees. After drying, threshing is done. Large stems are removed; they cannot be harvested.

The plant does not dry well and may rot in the process. If drying occurs naturally, then the room must have good ventilation. Attics are best suited for this purpose. Store dried raw materials in paper or fabric bags for no more than two years.

Chemical composition

Due to its chemical nature, the composition of Sweet Clover has a pronounced uniqueness. It contains the following components:

The chemical set is marked by the content of special substances - coumarin and myelin.
The plant contains a lot of essential oils.
Sweet clover contains a lot of carotene.
The acid series is represented by ascorbic, coumaric and melitilic acids.
Sweet clover contains flavonoids in large quantities.
Lots of cymarin and tocopherols.

List of medicinal properties

Sweet clover has undoubted benefits for the body. It is indicated for external and internal use. The plant is used in the form of various dosage forms. In its action it exhibits the following properties:

Able to eliminate signs of inflammation. The plant promotes the healing of ulcerative surfaces, treats furunculosis, and resists the hemorrhoidal process.
Sweet clover can relieve pain. Spasms or convulsions cause painful sensations. The plant is able to eliminate them. This is due to the fact that it exhibits a pronounced antispasmodic effect. Clover is indicated for migraines and pain associated with menstruation.
The plant has a pronounced antibacterial spectrum actions. Its use prevents infection of open wound surfaces.
Shows the ability to expectorate. Under its influence, sputum is liquefied and removed. The use of the herb eliminates cough in children.
The use of clover during breastfeeding is useful, since it can improve the quality of milk and leads to an increase in its quantity. Pediatricians allow nursing mothers to use a decoction of this plant.
Sweet clover is able to improve the quality of blood. The plant contains substances with anticoagulant properties. The condition associated with increased coagulability blood, leading to the formation of blood clots. The plant contains substances that can improve blood supply to the brain.
Sweet clover has sedative effect. It manifests itself due to the presence of coumarin in it. Decoction medicinal herb will be useful for those who suffer from insomnia, hysteria, nervous disorders. Its use will be effective for people experiencing panic attacks.
Herbs can correct conditions characterized by malfunction of organs digestive tract. Under its influence, the amount of gases formed in the intestines decreases.
The plant in the form of a decoction will help normalize hormonal levels, and this, in turn, will lead to normal course menstrual cycle. During menopause, the plant leads to the restoration of the usual hormonal levels.
Under the influence of the plant, the functioning of the heart muscle improves. The heart increases its rate of contraction, and blood pressure readings become higher. A decoction of the plant improves the blood supply to all tissue structures.
Blood supply to the brain improves, as a result of which memory becomes stronger and attention becomes more concentrated.

The use of clover decoction is useful for those who suffer from disorders of the urine excretion system and for people who have problems with the musculoskeletal system. You can apply a bandage with leaves and stems of clover to sore joints.

Recipe for traditional healers

Preparing the water infusion
A couple of tablespoons of dry sweet clover are added to half a liter of boiling water. The composition should be kept in a room at room temperature for at least 4 hours. After this, the composition should be divided into 4 parts. The entire prepared volume is drunk three times before meals. This composition can effectively combat insomnia and thoroughly calm the nerves. It is often used externally to treat various diseases skin.

Preparation of water decoction
It is necessary to weigh out 10 g of dry shoots of clover. This amount is filled with a quarter liter of water. The composition is placed on the fire and brought to a boil. Its further presence should be on low heat. The exposure lasts 30 minutes. After this, the broth is filtered and cooled. It is taken one tablespoon three times during the day. It is suitable for correcting conditions associated with malfunction respiratory organs and with states. The product can be taken by people who struggle with insomnia.

Half a liter of vodka is added to 100 g of dry melilot grass. For these purposes, you can also use diluted alcohol. Infusion is carried out for 15 days. 15 drops per dose are indicated. Alcohol tincture You can be treated if you are overcome by migraines, hormonal imbalances or infertility occurs. If severe headaches bother you, the tincture is rubbed into the temporal area.

Extract from the plant
Use fresh leaves. 50 g of them are poured with 500 g of vodka. In the dark and cool they stand for 15 days. After this, the extract should be filtered. Take 15 drops.

Sweet clover can be used for dressings. The dried herb is pre-steamed. The steamed herb is applied to the sore joints and covered with gauze.

Cooking butter
To prepare it, vegetable oil in an amount of 100 g is mixed with dry medicinal raw materials in an amount of 10 g. The mixture is kept warm for three hours. The oil can be used to treat furunculosis.

Ointment
It can be prepared in two ways:

Two tablespoons of leaf powder are mixed with 50 g of petroleum jelly. Purulent wounds are treated with ointment.
Sweet clover flowers are ground until a paste forms. Take 50 g of them. This mass is mixed with butter in the amount of three tablespoons. The ointment serves to eliminate foci of inflammation and is used as an external remedy.

Roots
You can prepare a decoction from them. To do this, dried roots in a volume of 15 g are poured with boiling water in the volume of a glass. The composition should stand on fire for 10 minutes. One tablespoon is used per dose. The decoction helps get rid of increased formation of gases and flatulence.

Sweet clover can be used when added to baths. It is filled with water and a concentrated solution of clover is added to it. You can use it for foot baths. They help relieve swelling. They are usually taken before bed.

If you have periostitis, you can rinse your mouth with clover infusion.

When breastfeeding, cracks may form on the nipples. To eliminate such conditions, compresses with clover are used. They can also be used for mastitis.

Contraindications

We should never forget that clover is a poisonous plant. If the dose is exceeded, it can be harmful. Overdose symptoms:

the occurrence of dizziness, apathy, manifestations of drowsiness;
the occurrence of headaches, migraines;
disorders of the digestive tract, possible abdominal pain;
addition of insomnia;
hemorrhages with possible hemorrhages;
manifestation allergic reactions in the form of itching, rash, burning;
tachycardia, increased blood pressure.

Sweet clover is contraindicated in the following situations:

pregnancy;
decreased blood clotting;
renal failure;
cardiac pathology;
internal bleeding;
hypertension.

The use of medicinal herbs can only be carried out with permission from a doctor. It is always worth remembering that the plant has poisonous properties. Therefore, an overdose is dangerous for the body. All use must be carried out according to the recipe and in the prescribed doses. Do not neglect your doctor's instructions.

It would be useful to recall that cases of individual intolerance to the components of the plant are always possible. And finally, you cannot replace the main therapy, which is indicated for a certain disease, with treatment with Sweet Clover. This is only a significant addition to the main correction.

If you follow all the rules, clover can be very effective and useful in the treatment of various diseases.

Video: beneficial properties and uses of clover

Mention of the healing properties of sweet clover ( Melilotus officinalis) found in the works of such famous ancient Roman healers as Galen, Dioscrides, as well as the Persian physician Avicena. In the Middle Ages, sweet clover was used by Paracelsus.

This herbaceous plant, the height of the stem can reach one and a half meters, the leaves have a matte green color, the shape of a trefoil, the flowers are bright yellow tint, small, collected in a straight brush, the corolla resembles a moth. The fruit is a single-seeded bean with green-yellow elliptical-shaped seeds.

Herbal healers use the tops and leafy part of sweet clover in their recipes. Harvested during the flowering period. Properly dried grass should have green color, without dark spots. When properly stored, it does not lose its properties for 2 years. It contains coumarin, coumaric acid, dicoumarol, melilotin, essential oil, slime.

Herbal medicines of sweet clover have a mild expectorant, anti-inflammatory, anticoagulating, anticonvulsant, hypotensive, sedative fibrinolytic, as well as diaphoretic, emollient, antiseptic, laxative and wound-healing effect. IN Chinese medicine sweet clover has been successfully used to treat epidemic encephalitis.

Coumarin in sweet clover removes muscle cramps, increases the minute output of the heart muscle and the number of white cells in the blood (used in patients with radiation sickness), helps improve blood circulation in all organs and systems.

Chemical composition

Recipes

Medicinal preparations based on sweet clover are used in the form of decoctions and infusions for internal external use.

Sweet clover infusion. Mix forty grams of sweet clover herb (chopped thoroughly) with three mugs of chilled distilled water. After standing for four hours, strain. It is recommended to take a cold infusion of a third of a mug (eighty milliliters) every eight hours (before eating food).

Cold infusion of sweet clover is taken for diseases: chronic bronchitis, tracheitis, with atherosclerotic vascular lesions, with the deposition of kidney stones and bile ducts, as well as with colic in these organs, helps with dissonance of sleep phases, migraine conditions, neurasthenia, pelvic inflammation in women, menopause. With a tendency to constipation, gout, rheumatoid attacks.

Decoction of sweet clover herb. Pour dry sweet clover herb (ten grams) into one mug of distilled water, boil over low heat or in a steam bath for half an hour. After straining, drink twenty milliliters every eight hours.

The decoction is used for acute viral infections, swelling of the bronchi, sleep disorders and liver cell diseases.

Compresses and local baths. An infusion of sweet clover herb for compresses and baths is prepared as follows: 40 grams of raw material is poured into two mugs (400 ml) of boiled water, after standing for half an hour, filtered and used as a wound-healing, anti-inflammatory agent.

For severe pain in large and small joints, cloth bags with sweet clover herb (steamed with boiling water) are placed on them for several minutes. Course – ten procedures.

Alcohol tincture

Mix 100 grams of dried herb with half a liter of vodka or 40% percent alcohol. Stand in a dark cabinet for fourteen days. After filtering through two layers of fabric, the product is ready.

Take 15 drops per 200 ml of water orally half an hour before meals 3 times a day.
The tincture is used in the treatment of female infertility, endometriotic growth of the uterine mucosa, disorders hormonal levels, as well as for severe migraines.

Sweet clover extract

Finely chop freshly picked sweet clover herbs (fifty grams), pour in 500 ml of alcohol, and leave for about fourteen days in a dark cupboard. After double straining, the product is ready.

Take 2 times a day, 12 hours later, after meals, 15 drops per cup of water, best after breakfast and dinner.

Ointment recipes

Dried flowers of yellow sweet clover 40 g are processed into powder, combined with petroleum jelly to form an ointment. Used for furunculosis, carbunculosis, wounds with purulent discharge.
Butter ointment - 50 grams of butter are combined with 50 grams of sweet clover flowers, ground to a powder. The ointment perfectly draws out pus and reduces inflammation.

Therapeutic collection for compress against pancreatitis

Calendula flowers (two parts), thyme (one part), plantain leaves (two parts), sweet clover (two parts), chamomile (two parts), ashberry (two parts), galega (three parts), calamus leaves (one part), marsh cudweed (three parts). Mix everything thoroughly.

Fifty grams of herbal mixture are poured into two mugs of boiling water. Leave for 45 minutes, wrapped in a warm towel. The water is filtered off, and the steamed gruel is applied warmly to left hypochondrium, film and fabric are placed on top. The compress is applied for sixty minutes. The course is fourteen days.

Contraindications for use

The most important contraindications for taking medicinal clover are: lack of blood clotting factors, severe damage to the kidneys and liver cells, pregnancy, hemorrhagic diathesis.

Uncontrolled use of sweet clover preparations can provoke headaches, dyspeptic disorders, drowsiness, internal hemorrhages, and central nervous system paralysis.

Before using any medicine do not rely on your intuition, consult a specialist who is observing you.

Sweet clover- Melilotus officinalis (L.) Pall, is a biennial herbaceous plant from the legume family (Fabaceae, or Leguminosae) with a tap root and an erect branched stem from 30 to 150 cm in height. The leaves are alternate, trifoliate, with serrated or sharp-toothed leaflets at the edges, lanceolate or rounded shape. In the first year, the plant develops not only a rosette of leaves, like many biennials, but also a fully formed above-ground shoot (without inflorescences). However, in winter, the stem of this shoot dies, and the regrowth of the plant begins from the buds that remain on the root collar.
Numerous drooping flowers are collected in clusters of inflorescences, which are located in the axils of the upper leaves on long peduncles. The racemes are multi-flowered, each with from 30 to 70 flowers. The flowers are small, 5 - 7 mm long, with a 5-toothed green calyx, a yellow moth-type corolla of 5 petals of different sizes, 9 fused stamens and 1 free one and a pistil with a long bent style and an upper ovary. The fruits are small ovoid, transversely wrinkled beans of brown or dark gray color, 3-4 mm long. Each bean contains 1, rarely 2, dull greenish-yellow seeds.
The whole plant smells of coumarin. This smell intensifies significantly as it dries. Blooms from late May to autumn. The fruits ripen in July - October. One plant can produce up to 17,000 viable seeds, requiring stratification and high soil moisture for germination. This explains the weak development of sweet clover in years with a dry, hot spring. Seeds can remain viable when stored dry in favorable conditions for up to 70 years.
Sweet clover- a Eurasian plant, introduced into North America. It is found in almost all areas of the European part of Russia and southern Siberia. Rubble and sandy wastelands are common habitats for sweet clover. It also grows along forest edges, in meadows, in the steppe, in thickets of bushes, along roads, and often forms thickets on railway embankments, sandy banks of reservoirs, young fallow lands, and in all sorts of disturbed places in populated areas and near them. Sometimes it is sown in fields as a honey and fodder plant.
For medicinal purposes, the raw material of another widespread species in Russia is used - white sweet clover (Melilotus albus Medik.), which differs from sweet clover in a number of characteristics, of which the most obvious is white flowers.

Economic use of sweet clover

Sweet clover is a medicinal, melliferous and fodder plant. During flowering, its thickets are fragrant with honey, because the flowers are rich in nectar.
This plant is also useful because it is a pioneer in the overgrowth of areas that, for some reason, have lost their soil cover. Thanks to nitrogen-fixing microorganisms that settle on its roots, it is able to live on the most infertile soils and soils, including sand and gravel.
The whole plant is very aromatic due to the coumarin it contains. The coumarin odor intensifies when the above-ground parts of the plant are dried. Raw clover ground into a fine powder is mixed with smoking and snuff tobacco to flavor them. Thus, in Ukraine there was a widespread custom of mixing dry sweet clover flowers, which they call “burkun”, into shag. It is believed that the smell of sweet clover drives away moths, so its herb is placed in closets in which woolen products are stored.
In some places, sweet clover is used as a spice. Fresh leaves and the powder of crushed dry leaves and flowers is used to season soups and okroshkas, and added to salads. As an aromatic substance, sweet clover is used in the alcoholic beverage, tobacco and perfume industries.

Medicinal value of sweet clover and methods of medicinal use of sweet clover

The flowering tops (grass) of sweet clover, in which the bulk consists of leaves and flowers, are used as medicinal raw materials. In our scientific medicine, sweet clover is used little, although the healing properties of preparations made from it have been confirmed experimentally.
The main active ingredient of sweet clover is melotin, from which coumarin is formed during drying by enzymatic cleavage. In addition, the plant contains saponins, tannins, flavonoids, mucilage and some essential oil (mainly in flowers).
In the sweet clover herb, dicumarol is a substance that prevents blood clotting, choline, vitamins C, P, E, carotene and other biologically active substances.
Sweet clover has an expectorant and emollient effect, and therefore folk medicine it is used for respiratory diseases. Sweet clover is often used as an analgesic, sedative and antispasmodic, for example, for increased excitability, headaches accompanying hypertension, migraine, menopausal neurosis, melancholy, neurasthenia, cystitis, pain in the abdomen and bladder. Sweet clover is also used for infertility, painful menstruation, as a means of regulating menstruation, as well as to increase milk production in nursing mothers. It also has a carminative effect. Studies have shown that sweet clover preparations improve blood supply to the myocardium and organs abdominal cavity, reduce blood clotting, accelerate the regeneration of liver cells and have anticonvulsant effects. Sweet clover is often included in collections of medicinal plants used to treat rheumatism. It is also used in preparations intended for the treatment of cancer patients.
Powder from dry sweet clover herb, as well as freshly crushed herb, is used in the treatment of festering wounds, ulcers, joint tumors, etc.
Sweet clover herb boiled in vegetable oil, accelerates the maturation of boils.
Flowers steamed in boiling water are used for compresses for boils and other pustular skin lesions.
Infusion (1:10) is used for washing when malignant tumors, pustules, purulent wounds ah, sore nipples in nursing mothers, mastitis.
For internal use, prepare an infusion in a ratio of 1:20. Take 10 g of crushed dry herb (2 teaspoons), pour 200 ml of boiling water into an enamel bowl, close with a lid and heat in a water bath for 15 minutes, then cool, filter and squeeze, after which the resulting infusion is topped up with boiled water to 200 ml. Drink 1/3 - 1/2 cup 2 - 3 times a day.
According to some recipes, sweet clover, mixed equally with coltsfoot inflorescences and boiled (1 tablespoon of the mixture per 1 glass of boiling water), helps with inflammation of the ovaries. Take 3 - 4 tablespoons 5 times a day. Treatment period is 2 - 3 weeks. At this time, complete abstinence from sexual activity is recommended.
Infusion for the treatment of inflammation of the ovaries (appendages): yellow sweet clover (flowers), centaury (herb), coltsfoot (inflorescences) - equally. Grind everything well and mix. Take 1 tablespoon of the mixture per 1 cup of boiling water. Infuse, wrapped, for 1 hour, strain. Take 1/3 cup 6 times a day for 3-4 weeks. Complete abstinence from sexual activity is recommended for the period of treatment.
Decoction: pour 1 tablespoon of chopped herb into 1 cup of boiling water, leave in a sealed container in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes, cool at room temperature 10 min., strain. Take 1 tablespoon 3 times a day before meals for insomnia, neurasthenia, headaches, nervous attacks, hysteria, melancholy.
An infusion of sweet clover herb increases the number of leukocytes in the blood of patients with radiation sickness.
Pour two teaspoons of dry crushed herbs into 2 cups of cold boiled water and cover the container with a lid. After 2-3 hours, strain. Drink 1/2 glass 2-3 times a day before meals.
An infusion of the herb is taken orally for chronic bronchial catarrh, for pain in bladder and kidneys, migraines, hypertension.
To prepare the infusion, pour 2 tablespoons of the raw material into a glass of boiling water, leave for 10-15 minutes, filter and take 1/3-1/2 cup 2-3 times a day after meals.
Infusion for the treatment of boils: pour 1 tablespoon of herb into 1.5 cups of boiling water, leave for 2 hours. and strain. Take warm 3 times a day, 1/2 cup during meals or use as compresses and rinses.
For sore throat in children, use a sweet clover compress on the neck. Place chopped dried herbs with flowers in a small linen bag and place in boiling water. Leave there for 3 minutes, cool slightly and wrap this bag around the child’s throat, tying wax paper and a towel on top. You must wash your neck before the procedure. hot water with soap to keep skin pores clean. Keep the compress for 1 hour. Drink the water into which the sweet clover was dipped with sugar.
For muscle pain due to a cold, take flower tea: 30 g per 100 ml - 1 glass of wine every hour.
At hypertension Pour 1 teaspoon of herb into 200 ml of warm boiled water, leave for 2 hours, strain. Drink 70 ml 2 - 3 times a day.
At pulmonary infarction(most often associated with embolism in thrombophlebitis of peripheral veins) leave 2 teaspoons of the herb for 2 hours. in 400 ml of warm boiled water and drink 100 ml of infusion 2-3 times a day before meals, with honey to taste.
For mastitis, leave 2 tablespoons of the herb for 10 minutes. in 500 ml of water in a closed container on a hot stove. Use for baths and compresses.
For phlegmon (purulent inflammation of tissue), apply a patch of 6 g of sweet clover leaves crushed with egg yolk.
Cold infusion of herbs: 1 tablespoon of dry crushed raw materials per 1 glass cold water, leave for 4 hours, strain. Take 1/4 cup 3 times a day for neurasthenia, hysteria, migraine, atherosclerosis, angina pectoris and coronary disease heart, for hemorrhoids, bronchitis, nephrosis, cystitis, for climacteric neuroses, inflammation of the ovaries, dysmenorrhea, with leukemia after irradiation.
Herbal infusion: 2 tablespoons of crushed raw materials per 1 cup of boiling water, infuse for 3 minutes, strain, take 1/3 - 1/2 cup 2 - 3 times a day after meals for thyrotoxicosis.
A decoction of the roots (1 teaspoon per 200 ml) is used for thrombosis. Take 100 ml 3 times a day.
Infusion: pour 1 tablespoon of herb into 300 ml of boiling water, leave for 2 hours. Take 1/2 cup of infusion 3 times a day before meals to treat cracks anus. Locally - poultices or compresses from the warm remainder of the infusion after straining.
In Russian folk medicine, for “chest diseases”, they take tea from the flowers, 30 g per 1 liter of boiling water. Take 50 ml of napara every hour.
For atherosclerosis with impending memory loss, the following collection is recommended: sage, grass - 10; sweet clover, grass - 5. Pour boiling water over a tablespoon of the mixture. Drink the resulting infusion for 3 minutes. before meals (preferably warm).
A well-known herbal mixture, which includes sweet clover, is intended to alleviate pain. The collection includes marshmallow leaves, mallow leaves, sweet clover herb, chamomile inflorescences, and flax seeds. All components are mixed in equal parts, ground into powder, the mixture is placed in a linen bag, which is kept for 10 minutes. in hot water, and then applied to the sore spot.
Sweet clover herb, mixed in equal proportions with chamomile inflorescences, is used as a carminative. To do this, pour 1 tablespoon of the crushed mixture into 1 glass of boiling water and leave for several hours. After cooling, the infusion is filtered and taken 2 tablespoons 3 times a day.
Laxative tea: buckthorn, bark - 30, sweet clover, grass - 10; nettle, leaves - 10.
Brew one tablespoon of the mixture in 1 glass of boiling water, leave for 20 minutes. Drink 1/2 cup at night.
In Western European (in particular German) medicine it is used healing effect plants for veins. It has been established that thanks to sweet clover preparations, capillary resistance (the so-called resistance force of thin blood vessels) increases and capillary permeability decreases. The main area of application of sweet clover is vascular spasms and hemorrhoids. Numerous herbal preparations have been developed that are taken orally, as well as ointments containing sweet clover powder as an active ingredient. Medicines are taken internally for chronic venous insufficiency, a feeling of pain and heaviness in the legs, night cramps in the calves, itching and swelling, as well as for the prevention of thrombophlebitis, treatment of post-thrombotic syndrome, hemorrhoids and lymphostasis.
Sweet clover has found wide application in homeopathy. Homeopathic remedy Melilotus is made from fresh flowering sweet clover plants. It is used for severe headaches, migraines, and nosebleeds. They also treat children suffering from seizures.

Features of the preparation of medicinal clover

Usually, when harvesting for medicinal purposes, entire sweet clover plants are cut or mowed, tied in bunches (like brooms) and hung to dry in attics, sheds, or sheds. It is advisable to lay out a durable bedding underneath them, because when they dry out, flowers and leaves, which make up the most valuable part of the raw material, may spontaneously fall off. The dried “brooms” are threshed, the small flyaway mass is collected and used as raw material, and the large stems are thrown away or utilized as fuel. You can immediately cut off only the upper, non-coarse parts and dry them, spreading them on a clean bedding.
Dry sweet clover raw material in the shade. The aroma intensifies during drying, so you should not strive to speed up this operation - temperatures above 35 ° C are undesirable for drying. Dry raw materials have strong smell, what needs to be taken into account when storing it - it is better to use closed glass or metal jars as containers. Shelf life up to 2 years.
Precautionary measures. Sweet clover is poisonous. In large doses it causes headache, vomiting, drowsiness. Toxic doses lead to liver damage and hemorrhage. Poisoning occurs especially often when raw materials are improperly dried and stored: at high humidity, dicoumarin is formed in the raw materials, which provokes hemorrhages. To prevent poisoning, you need to strictly follow the dosage of drugs, as well as properly dry and prepare raw materials.
Sweet clover has been known as a medicinal plant since ancient times. Ancient horoscopes indicate that sweet clover is ruled by the Sun.

Sweet clover is an unpretentious plant that grows in wild conditions almost everywhere: in meadows, wastelands, forests, ravines, and along roadsides. Sweet clover, the beneficial properties and contraindications of which have been quite well studied, is often used in medicinal purposes and cooking, and in many countries it is cultivated precisely for this purpose. Due to its wide distribution area, this grass has received many names among the people, including female sweet clover, burkun, wild, bottom grass, honey clover.

In the vastness of our country, you can more often find sweet clover with white and yellow flowers. They differ slightly in aroma and chemical composition. In medicine, yellow or medicinal sweet clover is actively used, which is more studied. All kinds of decoctions, ointments and tinctures are prepared from it.

Beneficial features

Burkun contains melilotin, which releases coumarin, saponins, flavonoids and others during the harvesting process. useful material. Essential oil is extracted from the inflorescences of the plant in small doses. Burkun products are suitable for both external and internal use. It has a lot of useful properties, among which the following are worth highlighting:

relieves nervous tension;
relieves cramps;
improves blood circulation;
strengthens blood vessels;
thins the blood and prevents the development of blood clots;
stimulates the growth of the number of leukocytes.

The plant is especially valuable due to its coumarin. This substance has a relaxing effect on nervous system, therefore it is used for increased nervous excitability, hysterics and depressive states. As part of medicines, coumarin helps fight seizures, improves blood supply to the heart, brain and gastrointestinal tract.

Sweet clover has a beneficial effect on digestion and has a laxative effect. It is used to combat flatulence and constipation. It is also included in laxative preparations and preparations.

It is used for coronary heart disease, as well as for vascular diseases. Herbal decoction is an excellent expectorant that is recommended for use for bronchitis. The plant is often included in breast fees. It is used to treat varicose veins, thrombophlebitis and hemorrhoids.

The plant has also found application in beekeeping: honey from sweet clover has a light vanilla aroma and pleasant taste. In addition, it is known for its healing properties. It is used for rheumatism and joint inflammation, bronchitis, migraines, hypertension and many other ailments. For medicinal purposes, sweet clover honey is suitable for both internal and external use.

Benefits for women

It is worth noting the benefits of sweet clover for women, because it is called “feminine” for a reason. Products containing burkun are used for treatment gynecological diseases, decrease menstrual pain, as well as relief from PMS. Easy herbal decoction Can be used by a nursing mother to increase lactation. Sweet clover is also indicated for menopause. Sweet clover honey is used in the treatment of mastitis; it is applied to the mammary glands.

The plant contains many active organic matter, due to which it is used in cosmetology. Extracts are included in anti-cellulite, anti-aging, soothing and healing products. Ointments based on sweet clover are often used to treat wounds and abrasions. In addition, compresses from sweet clover reduce swelling and promote softening and resorption of ulcers.

Contraindications and precautions

Sweet clover is not recommended for pregnant women. U expectant mother the plant can cause dizziness, loss of strength, and also lead to fainting and illness internal organs. Active components, contained in high concentrations, penetrate the placenta and can cause bleeding. During pregnancy, be sure to pay attention to the composition of medications and herbal infusions that you purchase. If the composition contains sweet clover, then you should not take this product.

Due to its ability to thin the blood, the plant can become dangerous if it clots poorly, as well as internal bleeding. Treatment with sweet clover for children under 2 years of age may also pose a danger.

Sweet clover can also cause harm as a result of improper storage. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that mold does not develop on dry raw materials. It is better to throw away a plant affected by the fungus; it cannot be used for medicinal purposes. If you cannot call yourself an experienced herbalist and do not have in-depth knowledge about the characteristics of plants, do not use white sweet clover for treatment and consumption, the beneficial properties and contraindications of which are less studied. This plant is considered more poisonous than medicinal.

Overdose

Medicinal preparations with sweet clover must be taken in in moderation, otherwise the plant may become hazardous to health. If after drinking tea or decoction of burkun your health worsens, then it is better to stop taking it.

An overdose may cause dizziness, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness and headaches. Drug abuse can also cause more serious problems, including liver disease and subcutaneous hemorrhages. In some situations, uncontrolled consumption of sweet clover can cause paralysis.

The daily dose of sweet clover decoction for an adult should not exceed 2-2.5 glasses. This way you can avoid an overdose.

Blank

To use sweet clover for medicinal purposes or in cooking, you can either purchase it dried or prepare it yourself. The inflorescences are used as medicine, top part with young leaves and shoots of the plant. Sweet clover is harvested during the flowering process; it is collected in dry and sunny weather, when there is no longer dew on the leaves (a wet plant can quickly darken and deteriorate).

The grass is spread in a thin layer and dried in the shade, in a well-ventilated place. You can use a dryer, but the temperature should not be higher than 40 degrees. A properly prepared plant has a salty-bitter taste and a pronounced aroma of coumarin.

In the process of harvesting sweet clover, it is important not to violate the technology. A rotten or moldy plant can be poisonous and cause serious harm to humans.

Application of sweet clover

In the kitchen, sweet clover is usually used as a spice. In crushed form, leaves and inflorescences are added to fish, appetizers, first courses, and used for canning and pickling vegetables. The herb is also used to infuse alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Sweet clover is actively used in the agricultural industry as animal feed. Thanks to a large number nitrogen in the plant, it is used in the form of fertilizer to improve soil quality.

Finally, Burkun is used in both folk and scientific medicine. Preparations and preparations containing sweet clover can be found at the pharmacy. The benefits and harms of sweet clover, as well as the peculiarities of its effect on the body, should be taken into account if it is decided to prepare it based on it at home. various ointments, tinctures, decoctions and other healing agents.

Healing tea

Herbal tea is a good remedy for hemorrhoids, itching, cramps and heaviness in the limbs. It is also used as an expectorant for dry and wet cough. To prepare it, you need to pour 1 or 2 teaspoons of the dried plant into 200-250 ml of boiling water. Brew tea for 10-15 minutes and drink no more than 2-3 cups a day.

Pour 1.5-2 tablespoons of dried herbs into 250 ml of cold water and put on fire. After boiling, the solution must be kept on low heat for about 20-25 minutes. Then cool and strain the broth. Take the product three times a day after main meals.

Tincture recipes

To prepare the tincture, 50 g of dry sweet clover will require 250 ml of vodka or diluted alcohol. Take a glass container, pour dry herbs into it and fill it with vodka. The mixture must be infused for about 2-3 weeks in a dark and cool place.

The finished tincture is taken before meals, 10-15 drops. She helps a lot with colds, headaches, as well as menstrual irregularities and menstrual pain.

You can also prepare a water infusion with clover. It helps normalize the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, and is also suitable for those for whom the use of tincture with alcohol is contraindicated.

To prepare the infusion, take a glass or ceramic container, pour 1.5-2 tablespoons of chopped herbs with 500 ml of boiling water and close the lid tightly. The mixture is infused for about 30-40 minutes. Fresh infusion is taken 50-70 ml 30 minutes before meals.

Ointment

The ointment is prepared simply: 1 tablespoon of dried sweet clover flowers must be ground to a powder and combined with 25 g of Vaseline. Instead of Vaseline, you can use butter. The ointment can be used to treat sore joints, relieve inflammation, as well as faster maturation and healing of purulent wounds, abscesses, etc.

Oil extract

Sweet clover extract in vegetable oil is used as a compress to ripen purulent formations. To prepare it, mix the chopped herb with oil in a ratio of 1:9. The product is infused in a water bath for 3 hours. Soak a cotton pad with the resulting extract and apply it to the boil.

To get rid of joint pain, you need to steam the sweet clover herb, put it in a bag or wrap it in cotton cloth. Such bags should be applied to sore joints for 15-20 minutes daily. The recommended course duration is 1.5 weeks.

Sweet clover is useful plant, with which you can overcome many ailments. But improper storage or uncontrolled use can make medicinal clover dangerous to health. Regardless of whether you prepare the decoction yourself or use a product purchased at the pharmacy, it is important to follow the recommended dosage. And if you have any doubts about the effects of a plant specifically on your body, consult a specialist.

Sweet clover is a perennial herbaceous plant, belongs to the genus Sweet clover, from the legume family, subfamily Moths. People call it: yellow sweet clover, yellow burkun. The plant has a strong coumarin odor. The root of the herb is the tap root. The stem is straight and branched, 1–1.5 m high. The leaves consist of three leaflets, lanceolate, serrated along the edge. Near the base of the petiole there are stipules, whole or serrated. The petioles of the middle leaf are longer than those of the lateral leaves. The flowers are in narrow and long axillary and apical loose racemes, drooping, yellow in color. It begins to bloom from June to September, several days earlier than white clover. Flowering duration is more than a month. Sweet clover fruits - beans brown color. It contains yellow oval shaped seeds. The fruits ripen from July to early September.

Distribution area: Europe, Asia, Caucasus. Brought to Britain, New Zealand, America, on these lands it has successfully taken root. Quite common in Russia. It grows mainly in quarries, wastelands, roadsides, and fields. It often creates mixed thickets with white sweet clover, which is quite similar in appearance, differing in white flowers and wrinkled beans.

Preparation and storage of sweet clover

They begin to harvest sweet clover during its flowering period, from June to August inclusive. When collecting the medicine, cut off the tops and side shoots with a knife; their length is no more than 30 cm; the thick and rough stem is not suitable for preparing medicines.

It is better to collect the herbal plant in dry weather, because a wet plant that was collected immediately after rain quickly ripens and darkens. Under such circumstances, the donium loses its medicinal properties. The plant must be dried immediately after collection. To do this, the grass must be spread on paper under a ventilated canopy, not in a thick layer, and mixed regularly. The plant is considered dried out when the stem becomes brittle; it is very important not to miss this moment. Because the plant cannot be allowed to dry out, as this will cause the leaves to begin to fall off.

To dry sweet clover, you can use an automatic dryer, but the temperature in it cannot exceed 40 C. If the medicinal plant has been dried correctly, it will smell like fresh hay and taste salty-bitter. The shelf life of the dried plant is 2 years; it is also recommended to store it in airtight packaging due to its specific smell. The place should be protected from light.

Use in everyday life

Sweet clover serves as an excellent feed for livestock and is also used as a soil fertilizer. This medicinal herb It is also considered a honey plant. Sweet clover honey is first-rate and has high taste qualities. It comes in light amber or white with a very pleasant vanilla aroma. It contains 39% fructose and 36% glucose. Bees can collect 200 kg of honey from 1 hectare of wild sweet clover, and 600 kg of cultivated honey. The herb also serves as a flavoring agent for several food products and tobacco. In some areas, sweet clover is used as a spice. Fresh leaves or dried leaves and flowers ground into powder are added to soups, salads and okroshka.

Composition and medicinal properties of sweet clover

Sweet clover, especially its leaves, is used in medicine"Meliocin", it has high level biostimulation, much higher than that of aloe extract.
Sweet clover is recommended to be drunk as tea as a sedative for insomnia and flatulence. For external use it is used for abscesses, ulcers, ulcers, boils, inflammatory processes mammary glands, articular rheumatism. Medicinal plant promotes speedy recovery after radiation therapy.
A hot decoction of the plant is used for instillation for ear inflammation, and compresses are made for toothache. Inhaling the smoke from the smoldering of this herb relieves asthma attacks.
Sweet clover has such exceptional healing properties: it is used for hysteria, for headaches, and for migraines, too, for spasms of the esophagus.
The medicinal plant is used for diseases of the respiratory organs.
Coumarin contained in sweet clover, which can prevent seizures, helps to increase blood pressure, improve blood circulation in the gastrointestinal tract, brain activity, it is taken for cardiac dysfunction.
Used for irritability, neurasthenia, melancholy.
Sweet clover is taken when the menstrual cycle fails, during menopause.
Promotes an increase in leukocytes in the blood; atherosclerosis, lung diseases, hypertension.
Decoctions from sweet clover are taken when gynecological diseases, for hemorrhoidal diseases, gout.
Acts as an analgesic, antibacterial, sedative, expectorant (it is prescribed for abscesses, mastitis, furunculosis).

The use of sweet clover in folk medicine

Compresses for boils and other purulent skin lesions, mastitis

For the infusion you need: 10 g of dried chopped herbs. Add 1 tbsp. boiling water, heat in a water bath for about 15 minutes. After cooling, filter, add another 1 glass of boiling water to the resulting broth and use for its intended purpose.

For gynecological diseases

For the infusion you need to take: sweet clover (flowers), centaury, coltsfoot - equally. Chop and mix. Take 1 tbsp. mixture for 1 tbsp. boiled water, leave for 1 hour. Drink 1/3 glass 6 times a day. Duration of treatment is 3-4 weeks. You will have to give up intimate life until the course of treatment is completed.

For sleep disturbances, neurasthenia, hysteria, melancholy, headaches

To 1 tbsp. l. chopped herbs add 1 tbsp. boiled water, leave for 30 minutes, covered, in a water bath. Let cool, separate the grounds. Take 15 ml 3 times a day before meals.

Sweet clover to increase leukocytes

To 2 tsp. chopped clover, add 2 tbsp. chilled boiled water. Leave for 2-3 hours. Separate the grounds and drink 12 tbsp. 2-3 times a day before meals.

For hypertension - infusion of sweet clover herb

For infusion you need:

1 tsp chopped grass;
add 1 tbsp. boiled chilled water;
leave for 2 hours, separate the grounds.
drink 12 tbsp. 2-3 times a day. Contraindication: increased level leukocytes.

For chest diseases

For tea you need:

Add 1 liter of boiling water to 30 g of sweet clover flower steam. Drink 50 g every hour for a week. You can add honey or sugar. Even better, caramelize the sugar: heat it in a spoon until Brown, cool and then stir the tea with this spoon. Excellent expectorant effect.

Contraindications

This plant is absolutely contraindicated for pregnant women and those with kidney disease. When consuming, you must always remember that this plant is poisonous and in no case should you exceed the indicated dosage. It is better to use it in preparations.

Large doses have a depressant effect on the central nervous system and have a detrimental effect on the intestinal muscles. Long-term use may cause headache, drowsiness, and dizziness. Cases of hemorrhage of internal organs and paralysis of the central nervous system have been recorded. Do not use if you have poor blood clotting. It is necessary to take sweet clover only after a doctor's prescription.