celandine ordinary

Description:

Celandine is a perennial herb of the Poppy family (Papaveraceae), containing orange milky juice in all parts. The root is rod-shaped, branched, with a short multi-headed rhizome. Inside, the root of celandine is large yellow, outside-red-brown. The stem is erect, hollow, ribbed, branched, covered with sparse hairs or almost naked, 25-100 cm high. The leaves are green, glaucous below, pinnately divided with almost opposite, set aside pairs of leaves. The leaves are dissected into columnar-lobed lobes. Leaves are 7-20 cm long and 2.5—9 cm wide. Upper — sessile, lower-on long petioles. Leaf segments are ovate or rounded, at the base with an additional lobe in the form of an ear, irregularly rounded, whole or incised on the lower side. The flowers are bright yellow on long pedicels, collected at the ends of the stem in umbrellas, about 15-20 mm in diameter. The calyx consists of two sepals, which fall off when the flower opens. The petals are rounded and the Corolla is regular. Pistil with a short thin column and a small two-lobed stigma. The fruit is a pod-shaped single-nest bivalve box 3-6 cm long and 2-3 mm wide. Seeds are ovate, dark brown, shiny, with a pale comb-like appendage, arranged in a box in two rows.Blooms from may to August, fruits ripen in July-September, depending on the growing zone. It is propagated by seed. As a medicinal raw material, celandine grass is used. Celandine juice is usually bitter, burning, and has a very unpleasant smell.

Habitat:

Celandine is widely distributed throughout the European part of the former Soviet Union, except in the Far North, the Caucasus, Siberia, and the far East, and is less common in Central Asia. In the South of Ukraine, it occurs in sparse thickets or small groups and is concentrated mainly along the banks of the Dnieper river in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, as well as in the southern part of the Donetsk region. In Crimea, it is often found in the southern and South-Western foothills and mountainous areas. A small amount of celandine grows in the foothill-steppe zone.Celandine grows on soils that contain a lot of humus, in shaded areas. It lives in broad-leaved, coniferous-small-leaved, fir-spruce and larch-birch forests; in steppe areas it is found mainly in river valleys. In the mountains rises to the upper border of the forest. It grows on scree, shady stony slopes and rocks, on pebbles in river valleys and along the banks of streams, in bushes, along roads in sparse forests, often inhabits clearings and burning, settles near housing, in gardens, vegetable gardens,on vacant lots, on pastures and as a weed. It usually grows in small mounds, and rarely forms thickets over large areas.