Ash ordinary. Medicinal properties and application in folk medicine.

Our ancestors could not use medicines that can be found in a modern pharmacy. From various ailments, they were rescued by plants. They knew the properties of every flower, tree, bush and blade of grass. Unfortunately, most of the recipes of traditional medicine are lost. But some experts collect data on various methods of treatment by bit, taking experience from herbalists in remote villages. Today we will get acquainted with an amazing plant called ash-tree. We learn about its places of growth and healing properties.

Ash ordinary - this is a stature tree, capable of reaching a height of forty meters. The diameter of the stem of an adult plant reaches one meter. It is easy to recognize among thousands of other trees along a columnar trunk covered with a crust of dark gray with pronounced cracks and a rounded crown. The leaves of the ash have a complex shape and consist of 9-13 elongated leaves. Flowers appear in the early spring, at a time when the leaves are just beginning to unfold. At the time of flowering, the entire tree is covered with small whiskers of white and light beige color.

The fruits of the ash are small single-seeded lionfish, which are gathered in bundles. In one panicle can be from 3 to 86 fruits. At the beginning of October, seeds are grown from them, similar to flat and slightly tapered brown nuts. A beautiful ash tree is common in Western, Southern and Middle Europe, Belarus, Ukraine, the Crimea and the Volga region. The plant very fond of fertile and light soils with a low degree of moisture. The ash reacts sharply to changes in air temperature and is often damaged during spring frosts. This heat-loving plant very badly takes root in the northern regions.

Ash ordinary has hard and solid wood, which is widely used in carpentry, furniture, car building and machine building. The bark of the tree is used as a raw material for making dyes of blue, black and brown colors. It is also a substitute for quinine and a wonderful tanning agent.

What is so prized ash in folk medicine? The main components for the preparation of medicines are leaves and bark from young shoots. They include quercetin, mucus, tannins, essential oil, malic and ascorbic acid, vitamin C, tannins and glycoside. Ash leaves for many years are the official medicinal product in Swiss and German medicine.

Preparations made using the bark and leaves of this amazing plant are excellent hemostatic, anti-febrile and anti-inflammatory agents. Let's look at several folk methods of treatment:

• To quickly heal wounds of different origin, you need to make a gruel from the bark and leaves. Attach it to the damaged area and apply a bandage. You need to do the dressing 2-3 times a day.
• When ear infection, it should be dripped into it juice obtained from fresh leaves.
• With frequent nasal bleeding, as well as catarrhal diseases, it is necessary to take infusion, prepared from bark and leaves. To do this, a half tablespoons of raw materials should be poured with boiling water (400 grams) and insist under a closed lid for about fifteen minutes. Ready-to-use means take one hundred grams four times each day.
• In acute attacks of radiculitis, you should prepare infusion of boiling water (200 grams) and leaves (20 grams). The medicine is prepared for one hour and is taken three times a day on a tablespoon.
• In diseases of the upper respiratory tract in a chronic form, it is necessary to prepare a decoction of forty grams of bark and leaf mixture per liter of water. Take the product should be one hundred grams to three times a day.

Ash ordinary - this is a beautiful and valuable plant. It is recommended to increase its planting in populated areas, as its foliage perfectly cleans air of harmful impurities, and the root system fixes free-flowing soils.