Effect:
eye-strengthening, expectorant, diuretic, choleretic, antibiotic, antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory
Areas of application:
Catarrhs, colds, coughs, asthma, whooping cough, bronchitis, dropsy, edema, bladder and kidney infections, against bedwetting, nosebleeds, earache, tinnitus, mild diarrhea, inflammation of the mouth and throat, wound treatment, eyewash for eyesight, stimulates the metabolism, liver diseases
Plant parts used:
the whole herb
Collection time:
May to September
To find:
The yellow-flowering plant grows abundantly in meadows, on the edges of forests and paths and in bushes.
Ingredients:
Bitter substances, mucilage, resins, trace elements
Other:
☕ Tea: 2 teaspoons of hawkweed are poured with 1/4 liter of boiling water and strained after 10 minutes of steeping. 3 cups per day are sufficient.
The small hawkweed grows as a perennial, herbaceous plant. Its narrow, egg-shaped, entire-edged leaves form a basal rosette. They are covered with long trichomes on the upper side and have gray, felty hairs on the underside. Up to 30 centimetres long, above-ground runners with daughter rosettes are formed. The flowering period is from May to October. The individual, basket-shaped inflorescences have a diameter of 2 to 3 centimetres. The gray, felty flower stem is leafless and reaches heights of 5 to 30 centimetres. The also gray, felty flower bracts are linear, 1 to 2 millimetres wide. The flower baskets contain up to 64 light yellow ray flowers. Individual flowers on the outside often appear striped red. The fruit ripens from July to September. The fruits are beakless achenes, which have a total of one pappus. (Wikipedia)
In the kitchen, you can use both the leaves and the flowers. The taste is bitter.
"If love is good, there will be a drop of blood" To test each other's love, the plant was rubbed in a cloth; if it was red, the love was big enough; if not, it was the opposite.
The powdered herb is suitable as a natural sneezing powder. In northern countries, people use it to stuff their cigarettes. This is supposed to replace hemp and be a mild marijuana substitute (1 g should be enough).
Hildegard von Bingen: The hawkweed strengthens the heart and softens the evil juices that are collected in one place in people. But a person should not eat it alone; he should add some dittany or some galangal or some citron and then he should eat it.