Herbal thoughts

Blue or Wood Cow-wheat

Melampyrum nemorosum

 

• Family: Broomrape Family – Orobanchaceae
  (formerly Figwort Family – Scrophulariaceae)
• Growing form: Annual herb. Hemiparasite.
• Height: 20–40 cm (8–16 in.). Stem abundantly branched, soft-haired.
• Flower: Irregular (zygomorphic). Corolla bright yellow, fused, tubular, bilabiate, 15–20 mm (0.6–0.8 in.) long. Corolla tube usually curved. Upper lip hooded, flat-sided; lower lip 3-lobed. Calyx fused, campanulate (bell-shaped), woolly, 4-lobed, lobes approx. 2.5 mm (0.1 in.) long, narrowly triangular, branching, straight. Stamens 4. Gynoecium composed of 2 fused carpels. Lower flower-pairs separate in axils of subtending bracts, upper a one-sided terminal spike.
• Leaves: Opposite, short-stalked. Blade lanceolate–ovate, upper leaves toothed–lobed at base. Uppermost subtending bracts usually purple, sometimes yellowish white.
• Fruit: Elliptic capsule.
• Habitat: Young forests, broad-leaved forests, hedgerows, sloping meadows. Also an ornamental.
• Flowering time: June–July. 

·         It is annual, native to Europe, flower between June to July. The newest leaves are blue and turn green as they mature. They are usually toothed towards the base of the leaves.

For herbal tea you pick up the whole plant when it’s in blossoms. The plant contains vitamin C, glycosides, alkaloids, blossoms – carotene. (You can read all about flavonoids found in this plant in Pharmaceutical Chemistry Journal  Volume 44, Number 9 (2010), 497-500, DOI: 10.1007/s11094-010-0501-y ).

This herb has soothing effect on central nervous system and reduces high blood pressure. The tea (by washing the problem zones)  helps with urticaria and some eczemas.

To make the tea, you need mix one teaspoon of the dried herb in a cup of boiled water then leave it for 10-15 minutes to draw.

 Blue cow-wheat’s bracts (floral-leaves) are violet/blue, unlike the green lower leaves, so they are perceived as flowers alongside real flowers, which are yellow. The yellow blossoms symbolize Sun and fire energy while the blue leaves – water.

Our grannies believed that this plant helps to keep good relationship in marriage, helps to harmonize the body and spirit, mobilizes the inner strength of your body and helps to gain the happiness by attracting the missing things. In short – boosts your immune system. To use its energy in full, the best used fresh, especially in sauna. 

In Sweden, it is called "Natt och Dag" meaning 'Night and Day', due to its combination of bright yellow and dark blue colours. Comparing  folklore of different parts of the Slavonic area, the motive of incest, symbolysed by this plant, is typical only for the eastern Slavs, while the motive of widowhood and orphanhood for southern and western Slavs. The opposition of colors seen as the contrast of day and night (like in Sweden) - all over the Slavonic area.

There are etiological legends surprisingly similar in their plot all the over East-Slavonic territory linked with this plant. For example, in Kholmskaya Russia (Litinskiy uyezd) they said that a brother and a sister, not having recognized each other after long wanderings, got married; having learned the truth, the brother said: «Well, my sister, let’s go to a field and sow ourselves: you will blow in violet colour, and I in yellow».

According to a Belorussian legend, a brother and a sister have also turned into a flower brat-sestra [brother-sister] with blue and yellow flowers (Kotaw 1927: 213). A song from Polesye tells that the origin of bratyky is the marriage between a brother and a sister (Smirnov 1978).

The theme of forbidden love is not the only one that gave rise to the plot of a flower arising from a brother and a sister: «In the Gomel region there exists a legend about a brother and a sister who were taken to the forest by their father. With grief “they turned into a plant, so that people would pick it, and think of the brother and the sister”.  In a Ukrainian variant “a brother became angry with a sister, ran after her, and strangled her: she turned yellow, and he, having been frightened, turned blue”.

The plant blue cow-wheat Melampyrum nemorosum L. In Slavic regions has several similar names: vanja-da-marja [Ivan-and-Maria, brat i sestra [a brother and a sister] (Western Russia), Ivan da Marja [Ivan-and-Maria] (Russia), Ioakim and Anna [Ioakim and Anna] (Nizhegor.), bratyky [little brothers] (South Russia), bratowka (Mogil, Ukr]. and so on...

In dialects, a complex construction Sidor-Marja is known for designating an androgyne... As a result, folk ideas about androgyny, in particular, of marriage between a brother and a sister refer to the images of Ivan Kupala’s Day (Midsummer).

Incest in folk ideas is associated with the maximal fertility. These particular ideas may explain the use of the plant  for certain magical purposes in ancient rites.

In Slavic culture blue cow-wheat was used by sorcerers «to establish harmony between spouses» and for love magic as well as in Baltic culture.

Duality being associated with this plant, it also served as an original amulet. Having picked it up on St. John’s Day before sunrise, some people put it in the corners of a log hut so that a thief could not approach the hut: «brother will talk to sister; the thief will think, that the master of the house is talking to the mistress».

This flower was used as a magic plant as well: «who wants to gallop away from pursuit or to ride fast on a jade, must carry an ivan-da-marja flower on him».

Special power was attributed to ivan-da-marja, collected on Midsummer day: among other plants, it was one of the flowers picked up to be used against evil spirits: «Fern, then blue cow-wheat and mugwort - all these herbs, they say, are against sorcerers.

This plant was thought to be able to provide good health: «Among Russians, if somebody wants to be healthy during the whole year, he/she, having bathed at St. John’s night, rubs all his/her body with a flower of ivan-da-marja». This flower was a component of a bath besom as well. In some places of the Novgorod province, near Old and New Ladoga and Tikhvin, on St. John’s Day one heats a bath and, having stuck the herb ivan-da-marja into brooms, takes a steam bath on this holiday with the purpose to receive health. In Moscow there also existed a custom of steaming by besoms with ivan-da-marja. In St. Petersburg ivan-da-marja along with buttercup, nettle, fern, camomile, mint and wormwood was a part of a midsummer birch besom on the eve of St. Agrafena’s Day .

On that day, one did not forget about cattle either. In Sennensky uyezd «in the evening before St. John’s Day girls used to go for the herb «brother- and-sister». Such a habit comes from the old people, for a long time». The grass collected was carried home with songs; when the herd came back, one part of the herb was given to cows, another one left for the morning, the rest was scattered over the cattle-shed .

In Slavic folk medicine, ivan-da-marja is mostly applied against children’s  diseases. In Belorussia, for example, sick children were usually bathed in its concoction. It was especially used against scrofula and tetter in children in forms of tea and baths.

In Sweden, it is called "Natt och Dag" meaning 'Night and Day', due to its combination of bright yellow and dark blue colours. Comparing  folklore of different parts of the Slavonic area, the motive of incest, symbolysed by this plant, is typical only for the eastern Slavs, while the motive of widowhood and orphanhood for southern and western Slavs. The opposition of colors seen as the contrast of day and night (like in Sweden) - all over the Slavonic area.

There are etiological legends surprisingly similar in their plot all the over East-Slavonic territory linked with this plant. For example, in Kholmskaya Russia (Litinskiy uyezd) they said that a brother and a sister, not having recognized each other after long wanderings, got married; having learned the truth, the brother said: «Well, my sister, let’s go to a field and sow ourselves: you will blow in violet colour, and I in yellow».

According to a Belorussian legend, a brother and a sister have also turned into a flower brat-sestra [brother-sister] with blue and yellow flowers (Kotaw 1927: 213). A song from Polesye tells that the origin of bratyky is the marriage between a brother and a sister (Smirnov 1978).

The theme of forbidden love is not the only one that gave rise to the plot of a flower arising from a brother and a sister: «In the Gomel region there exists a legend about a brother and a sister who were taken to the forest by their father. With grief “they turned into a plant, so that people would pick it, and think of the brother and the sister”.  In a Ukrainian variant “a brother became angry with a sister, ran after her, and strangled her: she turned yellow, and he, having been frightened, turned blue”.

The plant blue cow-wheat Melampyrum nemorosum L. In Slavic regions has several similar names: vanja-da-marja [Ivan-and-Maria, brat i sestra [a brother and a sister] (Western Russia), Ivan da Marja [Ivan-and-Maria] (Russia), Ioakim and Anna [Ioakim and Anna] (Nizhegor.), bratyky [little brothers] (South Russia), bratowka (Mogil, Ukr]. and so on...

In dialects, a complex construction Sidor-Marja is known for designating an androgyne... As a result, folk ideas about androgyny, in particular, of marriage between a brother and a sister refer to the images of Ivan Kupala’s Day (Midsummer).

Incest in folk ideas is associated with the maximal fertility. These particular ideas may explain the use of the plant  for certain magical purposes in ancient rites.

In Slavic culture blue cow-wheat was used by sorcerers «to establish harmony between spouses» and for love magic as well as in Baltic culture.

Duality being associated with this plant, it also served as an original amulet. Having picked it up on St. John’s Day before sunrise, some people put it in the corners of a log hut so that a thief could not approach the hut: «brother will talk to sister; the thief will think, that the master of the house is talking to the mistress».

This flower was used as a magic plant as well: «who wants to gallop away from pursuit or to ride fast on a jade, must carry an ivan-da-marja flower on him».

Special power was attributed to ivan-da-marja, collected on Midsummer day: among other plants, it was one of the flowers picked up to be used against evil spirits: «Fern, then blue cow-wheat and mugwort - all these herbs, they say, are against sorcerers.

This plant was thought to be able to provide good health: «Among Russians, if somebody wants to be healthy during the whole year, he/she, having bathed at St. John’s night, rubs all his/her body with a flower of ivan-da-marja». This flower was a component of a bath besom as well. In some places of the Novgorod province, near Old and New Ladoga and Tikhvin, on St. John’s Day one heats a bath and, having stuck the herb ivan-da-marja into brooms, takes a steam bath on this holiday with the purpose to receive health. In Moscow there also existed a custom of steaming by besoms with ivan-da-marja. In St. Petersburg ivan-da-marja along with buttercup, nettle, fern, camomile, mint and wormwood was a part of a midsummer birch besom on the eve of St. Agrafena’s Day .

On that day, one did not forget about cattle either. In Sennensky uyezd «in the evening before St. John’s Day girls used to go for the herb «brother- and-sister». Such a habit comes from the old people, for a long time». The grass collected was carried home with songs; when the herd came back, one part of the herb was given to cows, another one left for the morning, the rest was scattered over the cattle-shed .

In Slavic folk medicine, ivan-da-marja is mostly applied against children’s  diseases. In Belorussia, for example, sick children were usually bathed in its concoction. It was especially used against scrofula and tetter in children in forms of tea and baths.

Use of Melampyrum nemorosum in modern medicine

According to researches of doctor-phytotherapeutist K.A.Treskunov, this plant can be used in herbal teas against autoimmune diseases (AD) such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), giant cell arthritis (GCA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), dermatosclerosis (DS), dermatomyositis (DM), Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT), autoimmune thrombocytopenia (AETCP), Wagner's disease (WD), Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), multiple sclerosis, syringomyelia. 

First database of volunteers, treated using phytotherapy (PT) and phytochitodes therapy (PCT) methods was gathered since 1972 .

Teas used were mixtures of diferent plands like

bishop`s weed, Spanish needles herb, common foaltfoot herb, common Scotch pine sprouts, drug speedwell herb and Glechoma hederacea, common lilac and wool mullein flowers, leaves and branches, wild chamomile flowers, European elder, white dead nettle flowers, yellow melilot herb, common betony herb, creeping thyme, heartsease and field violet herb, common horsetail clown's woundwort herbs, flowers, leaves and branches of Tilia cordata, ginger plant flowers, killwort and cowberry herb, calendula flowers, medicinal fennel fruits, rib-grass leaves, old-man`s- pepper herb , common St. John's wort, silvery sinquefoil, medicinal fennel, wild marjoram, meadow geranium and common ladies` mantle herbs, horseheal root, Geum urbanum roots and rootstocks, peppermint leaves, birch leaves, firetop leaves, common nettle and burdock leaves, knot grass, wartwort, Scotch cotton thistle herb, Dutch myrtle, tarragon and common fumitory herbs, firetop flowers, red clover and European hawthorn flowers, roots of dandelion and burdock, roots and rootstocks of cultivated angelica.

Almost all medical plants have anti-inflammatory properties. However their effect in different stages of inflammation is different. For example, those plants that contain binding tanning substances, prevent regression of the inflammation during edema and infiltration stage that in its turn prevents microcirculation. That is why concentration of these plants during abovementioned stages shall be reduced. Therefore during inflammation, hyperemia stage, concentration of binding substances shall be maximally increased.

Edema stage requires plants, normalizing microcirculation, and diuretics (dandelion, betula, knot grass, burdock, rib-grass, and horsetail).

Infiltration stage requires prevalence of plants-anticoagulants (melilot, spiraea, osier, cobnut, etc.) and those that normalize microcirculation in the twig (burdock, rib-grass, milfoil, melilot, calendula, birch etc.).

Stage of necrosis requires prevalence of the plants that stop necrosis, facilitate focalization of purulent lesion and increase regeneration process (burdock, rib-grass, etc.).