Lungwort. Mordovia

Blooming lungwort is a wonderful ornament of our spring forests. It has been growing in the forests of Russia since ancient times, and it also grows in the Republic of Mordovia. An ancient Slavic legend says: if you drink nectar from twenty pink and twenty violet flowers of lungwort, your heart will become healthy and kind, and your thoughts will become pure.

This valuable medicinal and ornamental plant is affectionately called medunchik, apiary grass, honey grass, medunka, because the spring flowers of this plant are rich in nectar, which attracts a lot of bees.

The scientific name of the genus (Pulmonaria) comes from the Latin word pulmo — "lung". This is because in the past lungwort was widely used in the treatment of lung diseases. Lungwort is also one of the Russian names for this plant.

The first spring flowers have always attracted people. Going to the April forest, the townspeople certainly want to bring home a bunch of first flowers, which usually includes lungwort. But such bunches quickly wither, and around large cities the number of these wonderful plants is becoming increasingly scarce. Therefore, it is better not to pluck lungwort in the forest, but to grow it: some species of these plants have long been cultivated as ornamental plants.

Lungwort flowers in our forests very early and blooms for a long time. Buds begin to develop under the snow as early as February, and in late March the weakly colored buds open.

Small bell-shaped flowers are gathered in clusters at the top of small flower stalks. After opening, the flowers change their color from bright pink or red to dark purple or blue-blue. Lungwort grows as a compact bush with a height of 20-30 cm. After flowering, broadly lanceolate leaves grow, covering the ground surface in a clump around it. Lungwort seeds are spread by ants. Therefore, its sprouts can often be found around anthills.

For medicinal purposes, these plants are harvested in spring during flowering.