Useful information

Cleaners in my life and garden

Woolly, or Byzantine (Stachys byzantiana)

Had I been to study at another school, interest in biology would have probably arose much earlier than this happened. But from the fifth to the eighth the tone in our class was set by Losers and Repeaters, of whom, in their "best years", there were half of the payroll. There were even two third years. These characters inevitably shone with the "school of fools", and they, throwing away decency, showed the class the deepest contempt not only for botany, but for all sciences en masse. It is justly said - "with whom you will lead, from that you will gain." And so it went. In general, I graduated from school with a C in biology, a more than fair grade.

On the one hand, you can't get away from fate (synonym - inner inclination). On the other hand, “the road we choose” is never straight and smooth. Anyone who intended to become an architect becomes a rock musician (Andrei Makarevich), and those who studied to be a doctor become a writer (Anton Chekhov). Here is my path in life, it turned and turned around, and led to the very science by which I was certified as a C grade student.

Meanwhile, the first symptom of an impending illness manifested itself in his youth. It happened three years after leaving school, when we still continued to meet in class, and vow to each other in eternal friendship. At one of these informal meetings, or speaking in a simple collective drinking binge, it happened.

Mishka Kosov, by that time a third-year student of the biology department, was immersed in science. He even dragged himself to our party with a pot-bellied briefcase. There, between the "Sprat in Tomato" and the battery of "Zhigulevsky", he warmed up the very bacillus, from which I caught the botanical infection. And this, as it turned out to be incurable, virus disguised itself under a completely harmless name - "Identifier of Plants".

In graduation 10 "B" Mishka and I were the main speakers. And although some, in their own thoughtlessness, considered me the first fluff, I myself, opening my mouth, listened only to him. From the height of the past years, I understand that the Bear had a hypnotic influence on me. In hypnotic language, this is called report - primary submission to the will of the hypnotist. How Mishka did it, I figured out only later. It seems to me that the whole thing was in me, and also in such an "insignificant" fact that Mishka never lied. But he had a gift for lying. To lie and lie, who understands - two huge differences. To lie is to exaggerate a little. To lie, it means, without changing the facts, to color the plot with rhetorical ornamentation. Mishka mastered this art perfectly.

It should be noted here that Mishki was still a brother, a year older, who had the habit of reciting all the oral lessons out loud. From him Mishka also collected all the rubbish, which from time to time loaded my pliable brains. Yes, he was so bored to hang me noodles that everything he told me about was perceived by me as the revelations of the biblical prophets.

That "meeting without ties" is not in vain mentioned here. By the way, we all came to her with ties - that was the custom. Having considerably diluted the young blood of "Stolichnaya", they sang their cool anthem "guys from the seventieth latitude." Then the "debate" began, during which they shared their life with each other. I had nothing to report about, and I kept my mouth shut. But Mishka was on fire. He told me this, why my labile "roof" moved. It turns out that the herbs growing under our feet, and which we trample in passing, all have names. More precisely, every blade of grass and every tree has something like a name and patronymic: bird highlander, stinging nettle, hanging birch ..., by which they are identified.

Of course, everything that Mishka "sang" to me, I have already heard from our nerd. But then it somehow didn't bother me. Now, this essentially ordinary fact seemed to me to be intimate knowledge. The bear saw the sparkle in my eyes, understood everything, and began to finish me off.

- Do you want me to show you how easy it is?

- Still not wanting, all my life I dream!

- Give me the PORTFOLIO! - commanded Mishka, flaunting, the wrong emphasis on "o", and ceremoniously brought out the aforementioned proclamation.

We left the community roaring for a while and went out into the street. There Mishka, without thinking twice, grabbed the "first available" grass from the wild thicket, and leafing through the book back and forth, gave out:

- Glechoma hederacea!

- What, what? I asked.

- Ivy budra.

- A-ah-ah!

All people want miracles. But some blindly believe in them, while others want to know the truth. The first (just no offense!) Let's call fools, the second reasonable. To each his own. Fools do not want to know the real truth, it disappoints them. Therefore, they prefer various lies to truth - fortune telling along the lines of fate, miraculous healings, sacred fire, incorruptible relics and resurrection from the dead. Reasoned people worship microcircuits, hydraulics and chain hoists. There is, however, a hybrid version - "ours and yours."

As far as I can remember, I was listed in the raison d'être. In the imperishable relics I saw rotting, but slower than the others. “But the bones of mammoths that died out several thousand years ago then claim to be holy,” I reasoned.

But the detector receiver and the metamorphosis of the dragonfly (it floats in water, then it flies like a bird) - impressed me as a miracle.

The identification of plants was also a miracle. Therefore, a week later I had exactly the same as Mishka's, a qualifier, which (I confess, I confess, but in the book I did not find it) I borrowed from the library. The identification of plants has turned into a new fad. Recognizing the names of the herbs, I felt like a pioneer in the land. Both of these occupations, by the way, are related by the fact that in both cases the opening is accompanied by a name and a naming convention.

But more to the point.

I identified my first two cleansers - marsh and forest - in nature. This was not difficult, because the Chitans have a typical Labiate appearance, which makes it easy to identify the family. Their leaves and stems, as a rule, are densely pubescent, faceted stems, flowers (most often they are purple in color) have a characteristic "lip" structure, and are collected in terminal intermittent spike-shaped inflorescences.

As for the different types of chisel, they, as a rule, are distinguished by a vivid individuality: one has “woolen with fleece” leaves; in another they have an unpleasant odor; the third has a unique rhizome in shape ... In general, remembering and distinguishing them from each other is not difficult.

 

So you know

 

Purist (Stachys) - one of the largest genera of the family of the labiate, or lamellar. According to science, there are about 300 species of chisel in the world. These are mainly perennial and annual herbs. Cleaners are represented on all continents except Australia. Throughout Russia, there are slightly more than 20 species of them, including 9 in the European part, of which 4 species are in the Moscow region. Although the "assortment" of our wild cephates is small, thanks to their bright flowers, collected in spike-shaped inflorescences, they are very noticeable "players" of the lower tier of natural communities.

Chinese artichoke, Japanese artichoke, or simply stachis

Siebold's purist, or related (Stachys affinis)

If you love artichoke or asparagus (and can you not love them!), Then you will also like stachis. All of these plants have one thing in common. They are what the culinary language calls delicious and healthy food. Scientistically speaking, they are rich in easily assimilated minerals, are absorbed by the body without a trace and contribute to its recovery.

The official name of this perennial herb is Siebold's purse (Stachys sieboldii), according to the new classification - kindred purse(Stachysaffinis), and its "historical" homeland is China and Mongolia. Stakhis is interesting for edible underground formations on the roots - twisted nodules, shaped like pond snails.

The first to appreciate and introduce stakhis into the culture were, of course, the Chinese. From them, the plant got to Japan, where it also spread widely as a food crop.And in the 30s of the XIX century, stachis, among many other Japanese plants, was introduced to Europe by the German-Dutch naturalist Philip Franz Siebold (1796-1866). (By the way, he discovered this for the Europeans to the host.)

Here I will be distracted. Siebold was an extraordinary person. He devoted his life to serving science, and was devoted to his work to the marrow of his bones, to the degree of messiahship. Many who knew him noted quarrelsomeness and "arrogance" in him. But it was rather a defensive reaction of an extremely purposeful person to the petty intrigues of envious people.

Siebold came from a family of hereditary doctors and medical teachers. He received his medical education at one of the oldest European universities - the University of Würzburg. According to an established tradition, he studied simultaneously two related sciences - medicine and botany. And both were useful to him.

Having acquired some medical practice, at the age of 27, Siebold joined the Dutch East India Company. The company sent him to Japan, where his task was to study Japanese flora for the introduction of useful plants in the Dutch East Indian colonies.

Siebold lived in Japan for a total of about eight years. There he married a Japanese woman and had a daughter, Oine (1827-1903). The daughter turned out to be all like a father. First, she looked more like a European than a Japanese. Oina was relatively tall, as sharp-nosed as her father, and unusually capable of science. Through the efforts of her father, Oina became the first female doctor in Japan, and she had a very high professional reputation.

But for Siebold himself, his official medical profession was rather a help. Thanks to his medical knowledge, he made useful contacts. So he got several volunteers who supplied him with wild and cultivated plants. And this was very difficult with the then Japanese closeness.

He acted boldly and at times very risky. Suffice it to mention the scandalous episode with the bribery of a senior official of the National Japanese Library, which was publicized as the "Siebold incident", as a result of which he, in fact, stole a detailed map of Japan and Korea, which included hitherto unknown territories. Thus, Siebold contributed to geography. For this "offense" Siebold was expelled from Japan in 1829. And he returned there only in 1859, already as a cultural adviser to the Dutch government.

Still, Siebold's main business was a comprehensive study of the Japanese flora with the aim of introducing cultivated and wild plants both into the Dutch West Indies and into Europe itself. To this end, at his Japanese home, he organized something like an experimental station, where he tested his acquisitions.

Simultaneously, Siebold took an active part in the development of the Dutch colonies in Indonesia. There, his main achievement was the acclimatization of a tea bush in Java, the varietal seeds of which he also exported from Japan, and the creation of tea plantations. Siebold had to work “on two fronts, cruising between Java and Japan.

Siebold was a biologist with truly universal interests and vast knowledge. It's amazing how much this man has done for science. His works on Japanese flora were a worthy completion of the work of the discoverers of Japan - Engelbert Kempfer and Karl Thunberg. The collection of Japanese plants he collected was the most complete and became the basis of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands in Leiden. Part of the collection went to the University of Ghent, and this alone created its reputation as a botanical center.

The merits of Siebold would be well appreciated. The King of the Netherlands, William II, bestowed upon him the title of peerage and appointed him a lifetime salary. He had the honor and respect of the learned world. About two dozen plants, and the most outstanding, including stachis, received specific epithets in honor of Siebold - sieboldii. (Walnut, hosta, primrose, magnolia, cherry, viburnum, clematis, maple, etc.)

Currently, stachis is grown by gardeners in many countries with a moderately warm seaside and subtropical climate. But this is mostly done by amateurs. In Europe, the stachis culture is most popular with gardeners in Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and France. Stachis first came to Russia at the end of the 19th century. But after the revolution, the plant was forgotten. The second wave of interest in stachis began in the late 1970s due to the fact that such massive and authoritative magazines as "Science and Life" and "Household Economy" wrote about the plant.

In central Russia, stachis overwinters unstably. Our cultivation of stachis is associated with the risk of freezing. In severe winters, plants fall out en masse. The yield also leaves a lot to be desired. It has been established that for full recovery the growing season should be at least 160 days, with the sum of effective positive temperatures ≥ 2500. And the absolute winter minimum should not exceed -15-20оС.

Another disadvantage of stachis is the difficulty in storing it. Because of this, it is most often consumed fresh. However, stachis can be stored in a cold cellar in wet sand. But it turned out to be too troublesome for our gardeners.

Stachis, or Chinese artichoke (Stachys affinis)

Experience shows that with proper agricultural technology, stachis breeding can be quite successful. My personal experience of growing stachis in the open field has shown that the following cultivation technology is the least laborious.

  • The choice of a favorable location is of paramount importance. It should be as warm as possible: slightly elevated, open to the sun, protected from the winds. Swampy, and even too wet areas are unsuitable.
  • Since with incomplete digging of nodules, stachis clogs the soil, it is advisable to grow it separately from other crops on a separate bed. For this, it is desirable to apply an underground restriction. For example, plant nodules in a truck tire.
  • The best soil substrate is at the same time light, permeable, and fertile at the same time. It must hold moisture, but have good drainage. Heavy floating clays and loams are unacceptable. The soil reaction should not be acidic - pH ≥ 6.5-7.0. A suitable substrate can be made up of leafy earth, humus and sand 1: 2: 2; or sod land, humus, sand 1: 1: 2.

Stachis can be eaten fresh - added to various main courses and salads. But usually the nodules are first boiled and then fried in vegetable oil. In this form, they can be served as a separate dish.

 

Woolly chisel, aka Byzantine

The leaves of this herb are, without exaggeration, unique. First, they have an unusual cement-gray color. Secondly, they are unusually densely covered with long hairs, because of which they seem to be made of naped fabric. In addition, the leaves are wintering.

The question arises: why did the plant need such an unusual outfit !? Answer: thick "wool" in summer protects the leaf blades from overheating, and in winter, on the contrary, serves as a heater for them. The fact is that the homeland of this plant is the territory that includes Asia Minor, Transcaucasia and the Iranian Highlands (Turkey, Armenia, Iran). Chistets grows there mainly on the mountain slopes. The climate in those places is full of contrasts. In summer, the air heats up to + 50 ° C (and the earth is even more!), And in winter there are 30-degree frosts. Here the cleaner has adapted to smooth out strong temperature drops with the help of heat-shielding pile.

 

Woolly chisel (Stachys lanata), synonym Chistets Byzantine (Stachys byzantiana) - a perennial herb, known among gardeners as "sheep's ears". The leaves of this species are densely covered with gray hairs, due to which they have an unusual steel-gray color for plants. Peduncles up to 30 (50) cm high are crowned with pyramidal-spike inflorescences, consisting of small lilac-red flowers.

Woolly, or Byzantine (Stachys byzantiana)Woolly, or Byzantine (Stachys byzantiana)Woolly, or Byzantine (Stachys byzantiana)

Due to its exotic leaves and the ability to form dense carpet thickets, the chisel is popular among European gardeners as an ornamental ground cover plant. The British are especially fond of him. In England, even several varieties of this purée have been bred.

Woolly Chisel is sun-loving, drought-resistant, prefers light, but fertile sandy loam soil. The plant as a whole is winter-hardy, but in snowless winters with frequent thaws it can blow out. And in especially extreme winters, the chisel freezes out. It should be planted in places open to the sun. The soil must have good natural drainage. Stagnation of water, even for a short time, can cause the death of the plant.

"Lamb ears" is the most useful perennial for garden design, universal in its application. Its small "scraps" and spots fit organically into a wide variety of compositions. Especially good are the "ram's ears" lawns in the foregrounds of mixed compositions. The purest forms the most colorful combinations with plants that have flowers of red, purple, violet and pink shades.

Chistets harmoniously combines with stone, fits perfectly into coniferous gardens. It can be planted with large enough carpets instead of a lawn.

Woolly, or Byzantine (Stachys byzantiana)

 

Marsh purse

WITH marsh purse(Stachyspalustris) I met long before I had an interest in plants. The fact is that this perennial herb is a common weed that is difficult to eradicate. During my adolescence (1960s), the part of the city where I continue to live today was a sparsely populated, asphalt-free outskirts. The food problem was then acute, so independent vegetable gardens nested wherever possible. Our family plantation was "dug up" by mother and father on the gentle slope of a nearby ravine.

Marsh chase (Stachys palustris)

In the gardening business, the mother showed an example of hohlack solidity. She taught to treat weeding like a calligraphy - to pick out the roots of the weeds, every single one, and break up the lumps of soil with a rake to the size of a walnut. Ukraine, whatever one may say, is closer to Europe. - You better dig up less, but so that the eye is pleasant, and so that not a single weed remains! - she taught.

And how, pray tell, all these wheatgrass, dreamy and purebreds (be they wrong!) To choose when all the soil is literally intertwined with their roots? My whole life is not enough here! I think that the prisoners of concentration camps, and they showed more enthusiasm for the work than me. He tried to influence his mother ideologically. They say - we don't need so many potatoes, I don't like her - it's better to boil millet and buckwheat. Sometimes he even rebelled, which was expressed in a kind of sabotage. To get the job done quickly, I dug at brutal speed, ignoring the weeds. How else should a 13-15-year-old teenager react to such bullying on a warm May evening ?! Friends are already all to one somewhere in a handful, only you are the only one doing hard labor ?! Once my mother could not stand it, and drove me away with the words: - Why such work - better get out of here! Go, run around there with other idiots!

Now I am grateful to her, but then it seemed to me inhuman. Although my mother did not say that idleness is the mother of all vices, and she had never heard such a funny name - Pestalozzi, but she knew a simple peasant truth to teach the mind to reason from an early age, while the child "fits across the shop." I myself am now sincerely convinced that youthful flesh needs timely taming. And there is no better tool for this than meaningful physical work. After all, whatever you do, your success is work, work and work. Those who did not go through labor school in childhood do not demonstrate any achievements in the future. I know this from many examples. And I am grateful to my mother for that “violence”. The synthesis of her neatness, coupled with his father's "scientific approach", was very useful.

But now I am so smart, and then all this horror I did not like. It is funny and sad at the same time! Once someone told me, they say you have "green fingers" - whatever you plant, it takes root. You are a born gardener. And I got carried away.- Thrust to the ground in our family! - My ancestors have been farmers for many generations! Etc. etc. And then I was pricked - I remembered how my mother, almost with a whip, forced me to this very agriculture. So much for your thirst for the ground!

However, one does not contradict the other. If at 14 I was lazy from weeding in every possible way, then at 40, apparently, there was already a copy of my mother. In any case, I once had a similar conflict with my son. But he also survived it successfully. I recently spoke with him on this topic. He himself rolls to forty, and it seems (ugh, ugh - do not jinx it! ") History repeats itself.

But back to the marsh chase. In my opinion, the epithet marsh does not suit this herbaceous perennial. It would be better to call him weedy (know why) or tuberous, since on its roots there are outgrowths similar to the Chinese artichoke - stachis. Personally, I have never seen this herb anywhere. Most often, the purse is solitary plants, here and there, interspersed into meadow communities. Occasionally it comes across on the edges and forest clearings, sometimes it grows on the slopes of ravines. However, he does not ignore damp places - the outskirts of swamps, the banks of reservoirs, low-lying meadows. So let it remain as it is - marsh.

Marsh chase (Stachys palustris)

Chisel nodules have a shell-like shape similar to stachis, put them side by side - it is difficult to distinguish. Unless there are fewer constrictions in the marsh, and they give off a little yellowness. And their nutritional qualities are said to be similar. In general, breeders put their hands on it, and this weed could well become our alternative to Siebold's cleanser. And there is no need to talk about his unpretentiousness. If you start it, you won't get it out!

 

Forest scrub

 

Forest chase (Stachys sylvatica)

Forest so forest. This chastetz, indeed, is not found anywhere except in the forest. But, for that matter, I will not deny myself criticism one more time. Very often botanists use the epithet forest! Be it my will, I, at least for a change, named this species smelly, since its leaves have a very strong and rather unpleasant odor, reminiscent of the smell of motherwort. The second version of the specific epithet could well be - ravine - especially often this plant comes across on the flat bottoms of forest ravines. It should be said that the forest chase can in no way be called a philanthropic species. The intrusion of a person into his "personal life" - that is, deforestation - ends fatally for the plant. Therefore, you will not find this plant in the city. At the same time, it is not difficult to tame it.

 

Forest scrub (Stachyssylvatica) - a perennial herb with a height of 60-100 cm. In central Russia, this is perhaps the most widespread of the chisets. It is found in shady forests, especially with an admixture of oak, maple, linden, on fertile and moist soil. It is the only one among our wild-growing chasteans that is capable of forming homogeneous dense thickets.

Wood scum is a plant for which I have an inexplicable sympathy for rational motives. After all, it is not interesting to anyone either from a decorative point of view, or from a food one. Trying to understand what attracts me in it, I do not find any reasonable explanation for this, except for a purely "scientific" interest. True, there is one more motive (I will call it ecological) - I want the flora around my country garden to be as diverse as a tropical forest. In addition, the forest purse is an indicator of ecological well-being for me. The fact that it grows somewhere near gives me a sense of satisfaction and well-being. He is - and that's good!

In the ravine border garden (I consider it a sinful deed to be my private property) - I have something like a botanical garden. For many years now I have been transferring plants to which there is any interest, often completely useless from the point of view of not only benefits, but even small benefits. The purist was not there initially. But I found him half a kilometer from the garden in a similar forest ravine. There it grew in abundance on a wide flat bottom with rich alluvial soil.

Both ravines, by the way, are channels along which melt waters roll down in spring. This prompted me to move the cleaner closer.I performed the “introduction” operation, ignoring the rules, in the middle of a very dry summer, digging out several plants with a large lump. But, to my delight, the plants took root, and after some 8-10 years at the bottom of my ravine, a very extensive dense thicket of forest chase was formed.

For the sake of fairness, I note that the forest chase is not such a useless plant. Traditional medicine endows it with the widest spectrum of therapeutic action. Various preparations of the purist are used for mental (hysteria, epilepsy, fainting, nervous depression); vascular (hypertension, cardiovascular failure, stroke); cutaneous (eczema, dermatitis); gastric (ulcer, gastritis); and female (amenorrhea, uterine bleeding) diseases. And also with gout, liver disease, internal bleeding. The herb collected during flowering, in June-July, is used as a medicinal raw material.

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