Hare cabbage is not for hares at all
The spring forest, covered with a carpet of primroses, delicate and graceful, is an amazingly beautiful sight. Among the first and early ones, one can invariably find elegant and slender, flinching at the slightest gust of wind, white buds of low bushes, popularly nicknamed "hare cabbage" or "cuckoo clover".
Hare cabbage is a plant, officially called common oxalis, with characteristic trifoliate or palmate leaves of light color. Six wild species are found on the territory of the Russian Federation, but the common oxalis is characteristic of the middle zone. In the world, this plant is distributed almost everywhere: Europe, North America, the countries of Southeast Asia.
The leaf of this plant is a symbol of Ireland and is depicted on its coat of arms, which has immortalized itself forever in world history. In Europe, sour cherry is often confused with growing only in meadows. clover, therefore they gave such a combined name - sour clover. Read:stewed cabbage with potatoes and meat recipe with photos step by step!
The medicinal properties of hare cabbage
- organic acids - oxalic, citric, malic and succinic, which give a pleasant sweetish-sour taste;
- calcium should be isolated from trace elements;
- provitamins: carotene (vitamin A) and rutin.
For medicinal and food purposes, the aerial vegetative parts of the acid plant are used - leaves with petioles. In addition to fresh use, decoctions, infusions are prepared from them, juice is squeezed out.
Cuckoo clover is used:
- like nettle - as a hemostatic and wound-healing agent;
- in the treatment of inflamed and pustular skin diseases, with furunculosis;
- with anorexia: as a means of stimulating appetite and normalizing the process of digestion - thanks to the acids included in its composition, the secretion of gastric juice becomes more intense;
- to improve metabolism, as a choleretic and antiemetic agent;
- as an antiscorbutic agent;
- in dietetics, raw rabbit cabbage is recommended for gastritis with low acidity;
- as an anthelmintic agent;
- in case of poisoning with mercury vapors and compounds, the plant can be used as a primary antidote;
- perfectly helps with vascular atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases.
In official medicine, the use of acid for improving health and treatment is advisory in nature with reservations for multiple contraindications: liver and kidney damage, arthritis, convulsive syndrome, urolithiasis, gout and blood diseases.
Ornamental hare cabbage
For a reason, decorative species of acid is willingly bred by flower growers: its very delicate and refined flowers on high peduncles, almost white with a yellow eye and pink or lilac veins, are very attractive.
At the summer cottage, you can grow both ordinary (wild) hare cabbage, as well as its decorative forms, but you should remember: thanks to the highly developed root system and the spread of ripe seeds for many meters around the oxalis, it spreads very quickly and can fill the entire territory of the site, becoming an ordinary weed. In landscape floriculture, it is planted to obtain an even, beautiful green carpet.
There are two ways to dilute acidic acid:
- growing from seeds that need a low air temperature for germination (stratification is recommended);
- shoots with topsoil.
Hare cabbage is a plant that is demanding on moisture and does not like places exposed to direct sunlight (this is especially true for red-leaved decorative forms).
The benefits of hare cabbage
Possessing undoubted useful properties, the plant juice diluted with water is often used as a vitamin agent with a high content of ascorbic acid (vitamin C).
Sour cherry bushes have no special nutritional value, but they contain a large amount of vitamins, trace elements and fiber. Hare cabbage is added to kvass and cabbage soup, compotes are boiled and vitamin teas are brewed, dried greens are used in small quantities as a seasoning for salads, for egg and meat dishes.
Cuckoo clover can even be used as vinegar due to its high acidity. It is not recommended to consume the plant in large quantities, as it can irritate the urinary tract.
A feature of the common acid sour is its reaction to the smallest changes in meteorological pressure, temperature and humidity of the environment: for example, the leaves and flowers of the sour cherry fold and close in bad weather.
Cuckoo clover juice perfectly removes ink stains and rust, and restores the color of fabric.
Thus, the most common plant, such as hare cabbage, can be very, very useful for all of humanity. Nature itself cares about people, giving them such an elegant and modest green miracle.
Oxalis and hare cabbage are different plants.
Wikipedia: There are about 800 species in the world, mainly in South Africa, South America and Mexico. On the territory of Russia and neighboring countries, there are 6 species.
In shady coniferous forests, it is often found Common sour, or Hare cabbage (Oxalis acetosella), is a small stemless plant with a creeping rhizome. The leaves of its trifoliate leaves fold at night and in cloudy weather. Flowers are solitary white with pink-violet veins.
In 2016, I had several bushes of dark burgundy-red, not tall plants, which bloomed with yellow flowers by autumn.
The winter was very cold = below -58 * C, there was practically no spring, and hot days and cold nights immediately became. Everything grows difficult, but red sprouts began to appear all over the garden and I decided that it was a "ruby" salad, but a neighbor said that it was hare cabbage.
It grows so beautifully and quiveringly that the hand did not rise to pull it out like a weed, but took the leaf in my mouth = more pleasant than sorrel.
I found your article. But can you eat it?
Compare your plant with the pictures in the article to determine exactly what it is. The article describes everything well about hare cabbage. You should not get too carried away, and moderate consumption will be beneficial.