Portolac flowers - history of the species, application in cooking and medicine

Flowers of the Portuguese have received their name from the word 'portula', which in translation means the collar. At us many gardeners name the given plant "rugs". Flowers are a perennial plant, but it is usually cultivated as an annual plant. To date, more than 150 species of this plant are known.

In our regions, the most common are two species - the sea lobster and the sea lobster large-flowered. The first species is wild and often it can be found in kitchen gardens and in garbage places.

Flowers are known for a long time. They were known and used in cooking, in medicine as early as ancient Greece and Egypt. In Europe, the Portuguese passed through France, around the 17th century. For example, in England it was used as an ornament on the windowsills and in the gardens.

With the advent in France, the flowers of portolac started to be used as a vegetable. It is now widely used in salads and other dishes. Its taste is peculiar, it has a light acidity and has a slight bitterness.

The leaves and shoots of this plant are used both raw and cooked, for example, for salads, soup and other dishes. It is also used for marinating cucumbers along with other famous spices. The French are very fond of using salads from cottage cheese and tomatoes, where they always add portolac.

This plant is used not only in cooking. It has a number of healing properties. It has long been used in the treatment of headaches, snake bites, insomnia and other diseases.

All the medicinal qualities of Portulaca are easily explained if you look at its composition. After all, it contains many different sugars, such as glucose, sucrose. It is also rich in micro- and macro-elements. It has a lot of calcium, iron, sodium, magnesium. In portalak contains vitamin K and C, there is also carotene and vitamins PP, B1, B2, E. This plant contains many acids such as nicotine, citric, oxalic, and amber. There are proteins and minerals in it .

Many varieties of portolac have been identified. One of them is a punlanak pun. Traditional medicine widely uses portolac as an anti-inflammatory drug in cases of kidney, bladder, liver. It is good to use this plant as a preventive agent in the form of a decoction. The benefits of portolac juice as well as tinctures from it, folk medicine has long known. So, in Chinese medicine, portolac juice is used to treat eye diseases, fresh warts can be reduced warts.

Juice from the stems and leaves of the pierlake has a good choleretic effect. Plant seeds are used as an astringent for stomach disorders, have antipyretic effect, and also increase potency in men. If there are problems with the work of the heart or arterial pressure, the aqueous extract of this plant is taken.

As medicinal raw materials are used leaves and stalks of portolac. It is practiced to apply compresses from this plant in case of abscesses and wounds. It is especially important in those cases when assistance is needed immediately, and there is no corresponding medication nearby.

It has been established by studies that portolac can reduce sugar levels. To do this, apply infusion or decoction, taken three times a day for a tablespoon.

Opinions about the portaloque are contradictory, because it is a weed that gardeners try to withdraw from their plots, on the other hand cultivation of the cultivated species of this plant requires certain skills and the creation of the necessary conditions.

The most common cultural species of this useful plant are the large-flowered porcelain, the dewwind, the Sundance, the Sunglo Cloudbeater others.

In all cultural species of this plant have large leaves and brighter flowers than in wild specimens.