Slightly Toxic
Effect:
diuretic, diaphoretic, healing, anti-inflammatory, astringent, antirheumatic
Areas of application:
Cough, lung diseases, as a wound dressing or plaster for abscesses and boils, diuretic, fever, headache, chest pain, snake bites, rheumatism, sprains
Plant parts used:
Flowers
Collection time:
June to August
To find:
On dry, hot roadsides and between highways. He loves dry grasslands and parched wastelands.
Ingredients:
Pyrrolizidine alkaloids, cynoglossin, consolidine, choline, mucilage, allantoin, fatty acids
Other:
The common viper's bugloss is usually a biennial, rarely a short-lived perennial plant and can grow to a height of between 20 and 150 cm. The black, shimmering red taproot can extend up to 81 cm into the ground. In the first year, a basal rosette of leaves is formed. Depending on the site conditions, one or more stems are formed from the second year onwards. The upright, usually richly branched stem is stiff and more or less round. On the above-ground parts of the plant, both stinging bristles, which are found on red, black or white nodules, and close-fitting, short, soft trichomes are formed (indument). If nodules are present, the stems and leaves appear dotted. The leaves are more or less densely arranged in a basal rosette and alternately distributed on the stem. In the basal leaves and the lower stem leaves, the simple leaf blade is elliptical to lanceolate or linear-lanceolate. It narrows towards the base of the blade and merges into a petiole. The stem leaves gradually become smaller towards the top. The upper stem leaves are sessile with a rounded leaf base or slightly encircling the stem and their leaf blade is narrow-lanceolate. In a cylindrical to conical inflorescence in the shape of a thyrse with a length of up to 50 centimeters, there are many protruding, simple whorls and contain many flowers in two rows. The bracts are narrow-lanceolate. There is a bract beneath each flower. The flower is five-petaled with a double perianth and, in contrast to the flowers of most other Boraginaceae, is slightly zygomorphic. The five sepals are only fused at their base and the five sepal lobes are 5 to 7 millimeters long during anthesis and lengthen to up to 10 millimeters and linear-lanceolate by the time the fruit is ripe; they are covered with short, spreading hairs on the outside. The five petals are rarely white, usually pink to violet at first, later turning blue to sky blue. A characteristic feature is the deep and broad, slanting, funnel-shaped, slightly curved corolla tube, which ends in the shape of a throat, almost two-lipped, with five unequal corolla lobes. The upper lip of the corolla is larger than the lower lip. The corolla lobes have a rounded upper end. The corolla is close-fitting on the outside, hairy for short and long, and almost bare on the inside except for a few trichomes around the ring of nectar glands. The flowering period is from May to July.
🛑 It has a liver-damaging and carcinogenic effect if used for a long time. The leaves are poisonous. No cases of poisoning from this plant have ever been recorded. The bristly hairs on the leaves and stems can cause severe dermatitis.
The plant parts of the common viper's bugloss are dangerous for smaller warm-blooded animals due to their allantoin content and pyrrolizidine alkaloids, e.g. B. Heliosupine, is poisonous. There is hardly any danger of poisoning in humans. Sheep neutralize the ingredients in their forestomachs.
The applications were common back then, but today there are better plants for them.
In the kitchen, the small blue flowers can enhance any salad. The young shoots and tender leaves can be added to salads and, like spinach, to a variety of vegetable dishes.
Using Bach's sun method you can produce a flower essence that strengthens your inner balance and roots.
Echium oil is obtained from the seeds of the viper's bugloss, which is used in the cosmetics and food industries. The oil is used as a dietary supplement when omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are required.