Sweet Clover
Sweet clover is a member of the legume family, and its Latin name is Melilotus officinalis L.
As for the family name itself, the Latin name is Fabaceae Lindl.
Description of Sweet Clover
Sweet clover is a biennial herbaceous plant with a straight stem that branches to the base and reaches a height of approximately one and a half to two meters. It has a taproot with numerous lateral branches. The leaves are alternate, trifoliate, and long-petiolate. The leaflets are oblong-ovate in outline, serrate-toothed along the edges, and are glaucous-green on top and paler underneath. Sweet clover flowers are borne in multicolored racemes, approximately five to seven millimeters long. There are only ten stamens, nine of which fuse into a tube that encloses the ovary. The fruit is a brown pod. The seeds of this plant are oval, yellow or yellow-brown, and can be either finely tuberculate or smooth.
Sweet clover blooms from June to August. Fruit ripening begins in August and ends in September. In the wild, this plant can be found in European Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Western Siberia. Sweet clover prefers fields and meadows, roadsides and shrubs, the slopes of ravines and gullies, young plantings, and forest edges. Description of the medicinal properties of sweet clover
For medicinal purposes, it is recommended to use the herb of this plant, which should be harvested between June and September. Sweet clover herb contains coumarin, melilotin, melilotic acid, and coumaric acid. The glycoside coumarigen is isolated from the fresh herb; when dried, this substance yields protein, flavonoids, and essential oils. The flowers contain essential oil, mucilaginous and resinous substances, tannin, choline, and a flavonoid glycoside. Sweet clover seeds contain protein, essential oil, and starch.
It should be noted that sweet clover has been used as a medicinal plant since ancient times. The infusion and decoction of this plant has antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, emollient, hypotensive, narcotic, analgesic, expectorant, carminative, wound-healing and anticoagulant effects.
Preparations based on the herb of this plant are used for coronary and hypertension, thrombophlebitis, atherosclerosis and increased blood clotting. In addition, this remedy is used as an expectorant and anti-inflammatory agent for bronchitis.
In folk medicine, infusion and decoction of this plant is used in the treatment of bronchial asthma, bronchitis, inflammation of the ovaries, pain in the heart, scanty and painful menstruation, as well as edema, cystitis and a decrease in the amount of milk in the mammary glands of nursing mothers.
It is recommended to use the following remedy as an anti-inflammatory: to prepare it, it is recommended to take one tablespoon of the herb of this plant per glass of boiling water. After this, this mixture is infused for one hour, and then this mixture is carefully filtered. Take this remedy one-fourth of a glass three times a day before meals.
Sweet clover Useful properties
