Yellow Archangel is a perennial plant. It is interesting that this plant is highly shade-tolerant, with a weak but specific aroma. Vegetative shoots creeping, 10-50 cm long. Generative shoots erect, hairy only along the grooves, with adherent hairs. The leaves are simple, oppositely arranged, simple, without leaflets, located on long petioles, densely hairy, ovate-triangular, uniformly green.
Usually the leaves remain even in winter and in spring they become silvery-white-spotted, marble in color. Flowers bisexual, irregular, large (2-2.5 cm long), yellow, double-lipped, with a helmet-like upper lip. The flowers are arranged in bunches, 6-8 each, in the upper leaf axils of the stem.
Fruit a four-parted drupe. Blooms in May-June.
The entire surface part of the plant has medicinal value. Collect the tops of the plant with flowers. The drug is dried in the shade or in well-ventilated rooms. The drug is stored in a breathable container for no longer than 1 year.
From a chemical point of view, yellow Archangel has been little studied. However, it is well known that the surface part of the plant contains a significant amount of water-soluble silicon compounds, as well as iridoids (acetylharpahide, galiridoside, garpahide), saponins, alkaloids, tannins, glycosides, essential substances, flavonoids and ascorbic acid.
Medicinal significance
The medicinal value is ensured by the chemical composition of the plant. The plant has anti-inflammatory, diuretic and expectorant properties. In addition, according to folk healers, the plant also improves digestion and metabolic processes.
In folk medicine, yellow Archangel is mainly used as an anti-inflammatory and diuretic agent. Plant extracts are used to treat acute and chronic cystitis, urethritis, pyelonephritis, prostate adenoma, urinary incontinence (mainly in elderly people).
Yellow Archangel is also used as a digestive and metabolic improving agent, as well as to treat respiratory diseases where it is necessary to dissolve sputum, especially if the cause of the disease is inflammation. Yellow Archangel is commonly included as an ingredient in complex tea mixtures used to treat acute and chronic glomerulonephritis.