Foxberry

Bearberry prefers dry sparse forests of pine, larch, burning, deforestation, coastal dunes, rocky and detrital talus, in the far north is found in lichen tundra.

Bearberry - light-loving plants, is not afraid of cold, growing on sandy soils slabouvlazhnennyh usually forming a curtain or pure thickets. Bearish berry muchnitsa, toloknitsa, bearberry ... The people called bearberry "bear eye, apparently because of its leaf, and in fact resembles the ear of the forest owner in a nutshell.

Bearberry in appearance very similar to cranberries and even the fruits of it looks the same as with cranberries, but they are not edible: seeds inside a hard and powdery contents, which in ancient times our ancestors used as an additive to flour in lean years. Yes, and leaves, if look closely, too, are different: the bearberry they are thick, leathery, with a network of well-marked depressed veins, almost the same color on both sides, and a cranberry edge of the sheet is slightly notched and bent down, and the color is different - dark- green, and the bottom mat and the whole point is seated brown glands.

currently bearberry - a valuable medicinal plant, the demand for which increases from year to year. In high demand this medical raw materials and the global market. As drug bearberry has been known since the Middle Ages, but as a generally accepted means it became popular much later.

Preparations from the leaves of bearberry have a disinfectant, anti-inflammatory and diuretic effects. This is due to the content in the plant a lot of tannin, glucoside Arbutin, metilarbutina, organic acids and flavonoids. Popular tradition ascribes Bearberry is extremely multi-dimensional effect: it helps in acute neuralgic pains, emotional upsets, fatigue, acts as a tonic and blood purifying agent, as a hemostatic, inflammatory, antirheumatic and diuretic. With the ability to provide bearberry disinfectant, astringent and anti-inflammatory action is in the form of decoctions and infusions can be widely used in cosmetics for removing age spots, skin rashes, reduced sweating of hands and feet.

First bearberry often used in households for staining and tanned leathers: Depending on the mode of processing and use of mordants received color - dark brown, dark red, brick red, orange, gray, green, bright purple, different shades of blue and black.

collection of raw materials produced in 2 terms: in the spring - before flowering or in early flowering and fall - from the moment of ripening fruit before they shatter. When harvesting sprigs olistvennye bearberry cut with scissors, shears or knife. Dried in the usual way, by expanding a thin layer that periodically stirs raw materials. Now approved for use leaves and annual shoots olistvennye bearberry. Due to the large number of dormant buds bearberry good resumes after the blanks, but to maintain its productive thickets necessary to alternate collection sites, using the same population of not more than 1 time in 5 years.

Bearberry lives long, sometimes reaching 100 years of age. Formed in plant communities, it reproduces only vegetatively and by seeds - mainly on the burned areas and groves, the seeds are spread by birds (for grouse and grouse fruit bearberry - a delicacy).