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Herbs & Plants

Digitalis grandiflor

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Botanical Name : Digitalis grandiflor
Family: Plantaginaceae
Genus: Digitalis
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Lamiales

Common Name :Large Yellow Foxglove or simply Yellow Foxglove

Habitat : Digitalis grandiflor is native to Europe to W. Asia. It grows in the woods in mountains and in drier stonier habitats.
Description:
Digitalis grandiflora is an evergreen Perennial growing to 0.9 m (3ft) by 0.3 m (1ft in) at a medium rate. It is in leaf 12-Jan It is in flower from Jul to August, and the seeds ripen in September.

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Arising in midsummer from neat clumps of fine-toothed foliage, a mass of soft yellow open bells, speckled brown inside, blooms along one side of a 3-foot-tall stem. Usually described as a perennial, it is more accurate to call it a biennial or short-lived perennial. If the flowering stalk is cut down after blooms have faded, it may rebloom in the fall. When a few flower stalks are left, the plant self-seeds.
The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Bees.Suitable for: light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils. Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It prefers dry or moist soil and can tolerate drought

Cultivation:
An easily grown plant, succeeding in ordinary garden soil, especially if it is rich in organic matter. It also succeeds in dry soils and, once established, is drought tolerant. It prefers semi-shade but succeeds in full sun if the soil is moist. Plants are hardy to about -20°c. A short-lived perennial or biennial. Members of this genus are rarely if ever troubled by browsing deer and rabbits. Special Features: Not North American native, All or parts of this plant are poisonous, Suitable for cut flowers, Attractive flowers or blooms.
Propagation:
Seed – surface sow early spring in a cold frame. The seed usually germinates in 2 – 4 weeks at 20°c. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and plant them out in the summer.

Medicinal Uses: The leaves are cardiac, stimulant and tonic. They are often used in the treatment of certain heart complaints.

Other Uses: The plant is used as Landscaping ( Border, Specimen.)

Known Hazards: All parts of the plant are poisonous.

Disclaimer : The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplement, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalis
http://www.finegardening.com/yellow-foxglove-digitalis-grandiflora
http://www.pfaf.org/User/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Digitalis+grandiflora

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Health & Fitness

Tongue Tells the Truth of Your Health

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Most dentists take note of the state of your tongue (and gums) when they’re looking inside your mouth, and are well aware that a carpet of yellow fur on your tongue indicates you overdid things last night.

………………...CLICK & SEE THE PICTURES
However, here at the John Roberts Holistic Dentistry Practice, in West Yorkshire, they draw not just on common sense, but on the specific teaching of traditional Chinese medicine.
Just as Western opticians have now started inspecting the eyes for signs of diabetes, Chinese physicians have for centuries been using a tongue ‘map’ to chart what’s happening in the rest of the body.
‘

‘Each area of the tongue corresponds to a different internal organ; which means, basically, the tongue is the window through which one can look into the body,’ Dr Roberts explains.
Dr Roberts is looking for, then, is any swelling, discolouration or cracking that will give him a clue about the wider me. He’s gazing at the rifts and chasms of my tongue as closely as if this were Crime Scene Investigation.

‘This line down the centre of your tongue, not bad at all,’ he murmurs appreciatively. ‘Not too deep, not too shallow. Not so good, though, is the scalloping on the right-hand side.’
‘The what?’ I ask, somewhat alarmed. Holding the mirror he offers me up to my mouth, I view my lunar-esque lingual landscape. And those bumps don’t look like scallops, more like cocktail sausages.

‘Yes, well, the point is, they indicate issues with the gall bladder,’ says Dr Roberts.
Issues? I don’t like the sound of that. ‘We’re not talking about serious disease,’ he stresses.

‘More an imbalance that can be remedied, usually by diet. You’ve been eating too much hot and spicy food and it could be upsetting your system.’

So what else does my tongue say about me, other than that there’s a bit of industrial unrest in the gall bladder department?

Conventional: Most dentists will just treat your teeth
‘Well, it’s a good colour, that’s for sure,’ comes the reply. ‘Just the right shade of vibrant pink.’
Ooh, he’s making me blush the same colour. Then comes the bad news. It turns out my tongue is wobbling.
‘When a tongue won’t stay still, it’s generally a sign the person is lacking in energy,’ says Dr Roberts.

‘Another thing that strikes me, looking into your mouth, is how cramped your tongue is.’
It’s true; for years dentists have lamented the lack of space in there, every so often coming up with radical redesign proposals, usually involving extractions. But the intention was always to make the remaining teeth look straighter, not to give my tongue more playspace.
Dr Roberts maintains that a caged-in tongue makes eventually for a caged-in person. ‘I wonder, do you have any frustration or anger issues?’ he asks. He’s looking for a punch in the face, isn’t he? Anger issues, my uvula.

Deaf to all protests, though, he then proceeds to relate how students of oriental meditation can only achieve full transcendence if their tongue is anchored behind their front teeth.
This is because of the 12 ‘meridians’, or energy channels, which – according to Chinese medicine – run through the body like invisible railway lines, converging at the tongue tip.
View the body as one big phone charger, he says. Unless you plug in the receiver (i.e. the tongue) at the correct point, the whole system gradually runs down.
Just as the tongue talks, so too, it seems the teeth chatter, and in my case the lack of an upper right canine incisor (removed in teenagehood) speaks volumes. ‘Have you had any liver problems, and have you suffered from pain on that side of your head?’
Yes to both. For example, I was recently advised that my liver finds cow’s milk hard to process. And all this before he’s seen if I need any fillings. So how way-out exactly are Dr Roberts’ theories?

‘Actually, all dental students learn not only about the the anatomy of the tongue, but about how the tongue can provide an general indication of what is happening in the rest of the body,’ says Damien Walmsley, scientific adviser to the British Dental Association.
‘For example, an enlarged tongue might be a sign of vitamin deficiency. So dentistry does not disregard the tongue.’

It just doesn’t put it at the centre of things. That said, it’s not so much Dr Roberts’s tongue theories that his fellow professionals find hard to swallow, as his opposition to metal fillings (he won’t do them, and suggests patients have them all removed).
‘I am not remotely short of patients,’ he says. ‘My appointments book is full, and people come from all over the world to see me.’

‘I should stress, though, that I don’t just take one look at someone’s tongue and give them a conclusive diagnosis. All I do is tell them if their tongue is pointing towards an area that might need addressing.

‘And don’t forget – I haven’t come up with the idea of tongue analysis off my own bat. It’s an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine, dating back many centuries.’
Speaking of which, does the dÈcor, perhaps, owe something to the East, too? ‘That’s right, we’ve had the whole place feng shui-ed,’ he beams.

‘Hence the yellow chair, the pink shirts, even the positioning of the basins for the patients to spit into. Oh yes, for me, dentistry goes much deeper than just teeth.’

Source:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1201020/Could-tongue-tell-real-truth-health.html#ixzz0M0CYclTq

 
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Herbs & Plants

Fritillaria Cirrhosae

 

Botanical Name:Fritillariae Cirrhosae
Family:Liliaceae
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Order: Liliales
Genus: Fritillaria
Pinyin Mandarin Name:Chuan Bei Mu

Common English Name :Fritillaria

Habitat: Fritillaria cirrhosa is  native to E. Asia – Himalayas – Nepal to China. It grows on  mountain slopes in alpine and sub-alpine meadows and scrub, usually on open stony moist hillsides Forests, alpine thickets, meadows, flood lands and moist places, 3200 – 4600 metres.

Description:Fritillaria is a genus of about 100 species of bulbous plants.  The name is derived from the Latin term for a dice-box (fritillus), and probably refers to the checkered pattern, frequently of chocolate-brown and greenish yellow, that is common to many species’ flowers. Collectively, the genus is known in English as fritillaries; some North American species are called missionbells.

They often have nodding, bell- or cup-shaped flowers, and the majority are spring-flowering. Most species’ flowers have a rather disagreeable scent, like feces or wet fur. The Scarlet Lily Beetle (Lilioceris lilii) eats fritillaries, and may become a pest where these plants are grown in gardens.
click to see the pictures…>..……...(01)……….....(1).…(2)...(3).….(4)…..(5)
Several species (such as F. cirrhosa and F. verticillata) are used in traditional Chinese cough remedies. They are listed as chu?n bèi (Chinese) or zhè bèi (Chinese), respectively, and are often in formulations combined with extracts of Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica). F. verticillata bulbs are also traded as bèi m? or, in Kamp?, baimo (Chinese/Kanji, Katakana). F. thunbergii is contained in the standardized Chinese herbal preparation HealthGuard T18, taken against hyperthyroidism.

Most fritillaries contain poisonous alkaloids such as imperialin; some may even be deadly if ingested in quantity. But the bulbs of a few species – e.g. Checker Lily (F. affinis) or Yellow Fritillary (F. pudica) – are edible if prepared correctly.

They are not generally eaten in large amounts however, and their edibility is therefore still somewhat debatable.

At least one species, F. assyrica, has a very large genome. With approximately 130,000,000,000 base pairs, it equals the largest known vertebrate animal genome known to date – that of the Marbled Lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus) – in size.

The emblematic and often unusually-colored fritillaries are commonly used as floral emblems. The Snake’s Head Fritillary (F. meleagris) is the county flower of Oxfordshire (UK) and the provincial flower of Uppland (Sweden) where it is known as kungsängslilja (“Kungsängen lily”). In Croatia this species is known as kockavica, and the checkerboard pattern of its flowers is held to be the inspiration for the šahovnica pattern on Croatia’s coat of arms. The Kamchatka Fritillary (F. camschatcensis) is the floral emblem of Ishikawa Prefecture and Obihiro city in Japan. Its Japanese name is kuroyuri, meaning “dark lily”. F. tenella is the floral emblem of Giardino Botanico Alpino di Pietra Corva, a botanical garden in Italy.
Cultivation:
Succeeds in a well-drained loamy soil. Prefers peat bed conditions, the plant should not be allowed to dry out. In cultivation at Kew and thriving in a sunny stony bed at Keillour Castle in Perthshire, this species does not, however, do well in all gardens. It is much valued as a herbal remedy in China. This species is closely related to F. meleagris.
Propagation:

Seed – best sown as soon as ripe in a cold frame, it should germinate in the spring. Protect from frost. Stored seed should be sown as soon as possible and can take a year or more to germinate. Sow the seed quite thinly to avoid the need to prick out the seedlings. Once they have germinated, give them an occasional liquid feed to ensure that they do not suffer mineral deficiency. Once they die down at the end of their second growing season, divide up the small bulbs, planting 2 – 3 to an 8cm deep pot. Grow them on for at least another year in light shade in the greenhouse before planting them out whilst dormant. Division of offsets in August. The larger bulbs can be planted out direct into their permanent positions, but it is best to pot up the smaller bulbs and grow them on in a cold frame for a year before planting them out in the autumn.

Edible Uses:

Bulb – boiled or roasted as a vegetable. The bulb is bitter-sweet. The bulb is about 2cm in diameter.

Medicinal Uses:
This herb is used in. formulas that treat most any type of cough (TCM: except coughs associated with deficient Spleen), and various types- of nodular formations (TCM: phlegm-fire hardening); also used to treat chronic bronchitis, tuberculosis, and chronic cough with sparse or hardened phlegm.

The bulbs contain fritimine which lowers blood pressure, diminishes excitability of respiratory centers, paralyses voluntary movement and counters the effects of opium. The dried bulb is used internally in the treatment of coughs, bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, feverish illnesses, abscesses etc. The bulbs also have a folk history of use against cancer of the breast and lungs in China. This remedy should only be used under the supervision of a qualified practitioner, excessive doses can cause breathing difficulties and heart failure. The Kameng and Lohit peoples in Arunachal Pradesh crush a bulk of Fritillaria cirrhosa to a paste to relieve muscle pains. Research has now confirmed the presence of a chemical similar to cocaine in a related Fritillaria plant that brings relief to muscular pain.

Traditional Usages and Functions

Clears heat, transforms phlegm, and stops coughing; clears heat and dissipates nodules.

Common Formulas Used In

Apricot Seed and Fritillaria; Fritillaria Extract Tablet.

Disclaimer:The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritillary
http://www.acupuncture-and-chinese-medicine.com/fritillaria.html

http://www.herbnet.com/Herb%20Uses_C.htm

http://www.pfaf.org/User/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Fritillaria+cirrhosa

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Featured

Laughter as Medicine

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Have you laughed today? Good thing if you have because most people take life too seriously.

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But those who laugh are healthier because laughing helps them loosen up. Though it causes the pulse initially to quicken, it slows down considerably, so that blood pressure sinks.

“The skeletal muscles relax and the overall result is better circulation to the muscles,” said psychologist Michael Titze, chairman of an association called HumourCare in Tuttlingen, Germany, and a researcher into laughter.

Laughing also helps to break down stress hormones and build up hormones associated with happiness. And laughing helps to increase the immune defences in the bloodstream, including those that help the body protect itself from cancer and heart disease. The antibody-containing immunoglobulin in the saliva, which inhibits germ attacks on respiratory organs, also rises.

“Laughing, among other things, tenses the muscles in the eye and activates positive emotions in the brain,” said Titze, adding that laughter is an expression of pure deliverance and total tension release. “Through laughter we abandon self control.”

The therapist therefore advocates looking for things that trigger laughter in daily life and activating the laugh reflex.

“Laughing induces good mood and that in turn engenders hearty and intense laughter,” Titze said. But today this is difficult for many people.

“Laughing demands a bit of courage,” said Claudia Madelaine Zimmer of a club in Leipzig dedicated to laughing. To a certain degree, the discipline needed to raise children wears down the ability to have fun. People fear losing their authority by having fun or doing something ridiculous. However, people with humour not only live healthier, they are also better at solving conflicts, she believes.

But because it’s often difficult to have a good laugh, people all over the world are joining laugh clubs. Zimmer said such clubs meet regularly, and do “laugh yoga”. This sends resounding laughter into the streets, not because the laughter exercises are so funny, but because it’s actually a way to practise laughing.

Chuckles, giggles and snickers – “You don’t have to make a big deal of it, we’re dealing with something that we actually can do,” said Michaela Schaeffner, chairwoman of the association of the German laugh-yoga therapists in Munich.

The goal is to laugh without reason or inhibition. This initially seems artificial, but with a bit of training people can learn “to go into natural laughter from collective, intentional laughter”. And because you can scarcely think about it while in laugh training, the relaxation is all the greater……...click & see

Click to see ->Laugh Loudly and get rid of many diseases

Sources The Times Of India

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Positive thinking

Holiday Blues

Rediscovering Your Joyfulness.

The holidays can trigger the blues for a lot of people. We all have associations with the music, the decorations, and the foods that are so pervasive at this time of year. We may look back on a happy childhood and feel that our present situation doesn’t measure up. On the other hand, we may be reminded of what we wanted but didn’t get as children. Either way, our real lives are unfolding in the here and now. This is a new holiday season altogether, and we can find joy in the fact that we can make it our own and let it be new.

One key way to reinvigorate your holiday is to let go of feeling obligated to engage in rituals or situations that make you feel unhappy. It is easy to get lost in the trance of tradition and lose track of who you really are and what serves you as you are now. But there is a wonderful payoff if you take the time to touch base with what you really want and give it to yourself. When you take care of yourself, your capacity to give to others expands exponentially, and so does your innate joyfulness.

The first step is taking time to sort through any baggage that’s nagging you. If sad memories present themselves, know that you are not alone. It is well-documented that many people suffer from depression at this time of year. The key is to face these feelings, hear them out, and fully process them so that you can be free again. Try giving yourself the space and time to consider what will be truly healing for you this year. Perhaps you’d rather go on vacation to a tropical island with friends than go back home to a dysfunctional family. Maybe you’d prefer not to exchange gifts. Maybe you want to change-up the traditional dinner fare and make something profoundly healthy or exotic. As you infuse this holiday with new energy, you will feel your blues lightening and your joyfulness steadily on the rise. Try to make this holiday season about who you are now, not what you were in the past. Enjoy.

Source:Daily Om

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