Читать книгу Some Useful Wild Plants - Dan Jason - Страница 22

Clover

Trifolium spp.

Fabaceae

Clover is a familiar wayside plant with leaflets of three and flower heads of purple, pink, white or yellow.

The whole plant is edible, although the raw flowers are hard to digest in quantity. (More flowers can be eaten if cooked or soaked for several hours in strong salt water.) Its high protein content makes clover very nutritious. The seeds and flowers are excellent steeped in boiled water as tea. (Leaves and flowers should never be boiled, as boiling destroys vitamins; instead, pour boiling water over the leaves or flowers. Roots and other hard plant parts usually need to be boiled.)

Clover tea is good for colds, coughs, bronchitis and nervous conditions. One cough syrup uses flowers, onion juice and warm honey; another uses flowers, new sprigs of white pine, mullein leaves, cherry bark and honey. Flowers, boiled and applied as a poultice, are said to be a remedy for athlete’s foot.

Red clover