Dogwood

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Dogwood Whoever has been to the Caucasus or Crimea in the fall knows firsthand about the dogwood. Its peculiar ruby berries at this time can often be seen in southern bazaars. Lovers of mountain hikes are familiar with dogwood.

This is a tree or shrub 2-9 m tall, usually with several trunks covered with gray, cracking and crumbling bark. It grows in mountain forests up to an altitude of 1500 m or on the edges and in thickets of other bushes.

Dogwood The plant has long been introduced into cultivation, there are many varieties and forms with large fruits, with a yellow and reddish edge of the leaf. Most of them are also typical for the southern regions. However, they tried to grow dogwood in the middle lane ... Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was a great hunter of all kinds of outlandish plants. What was not planted at his whim in Izmailovo near Moscow: now cotton, now melons, now grapevine. German, Dutch and Russian gardeners tried to grow peach, almond and dogwood trees in the royal garden.

Dogwood For a long time, the inhabitants of the Crimea considered the cornelian fruit to be extremely useful for all kinds of diseases, if used in the form of a decoction. They said that all the famous doctors of those times, visiting Taurida, did not stay there because they saw a lot of dogwood in the local forests and gardens - the best doctor against all diseases inherent in the human body.

A decoction of cornel leaves was used to treat intestinal ailments, and a decoction of dried fruits was used to treat colds and lack of appetite. Already in our time it was found out that the cornelian bark, its berries and leaves contain organic acids, sugars, pectins, tannins. The fruits have bactericidal properties, and they contain the same amount of vitamin C as in black currant.

Dogwood From time immemorial in the Caucasus, they have been making wonderful vitamin lavash: mashed dogwood was poured into special flat forms, dried in ovens and in the sun, and then rolled into rolls. It is known that during the First World War with the help of cornelian lavash it was possible to eliminate scurvy on the Caucasian front.

Inhabitants of the southern regions where dogwood grows, its unripe fruits are salted with bay leaves and fennel. The Greeks and Romans also salted dogwood, just like olives, and some poorer ate them with bread and cheese, and some richer - with meat and fish.

Dogwood Dogwood fruits are black, and pink, and red, and yellowish, and sour, and sweet, and large, and smaller, the shape is either elongated-cylindrical, now almost round, like a cherry, now pear-shaped. Excellent jam, compotes, jelly are prepared from its fruits, marmalade, various drinks, wines.

Dogwood Birds love dogwood berries, small mouse-like rodents, hares, wild ungulates and even fish, while humans, in addition to fruits, have long used strong, heavy dogwood wood. She went to buttons, parts of clock mechanisms, teeth of mill wheels, shuttles of looms, gun ramrods. Arrows and spears made of cornel wood had no wear and tear. And a dogwood appeared, as an ancient legend tells, from a spear, which the founder Rome - Romulus - first outlined the boundaries of the future "Eternal city", and then with force drove the spear into the ground and it blossomed like a dogwood tree. Obviously, therefore, the Greeks and Romans made the hilts of swords, arrows and spears mainly from cornel wood, and the dogwood itself was called a tree, "With friendly weapons"... The famous Odysseus, by the way, also had a dogwood spear shaft.

Dogwood IN Crimea And in the Caucasus, a lot of dogwood was previously cut down, and traditional souvenirs, famous all over the world, were made from its wood: sticks, canes, often decorated with cupronickel, blackened silver, and even gold.

Cornelian leaves, bark, thin branches, and drupes of fruits were also used.The bark and leaves contain many tannins: they can be used for tanning and dyeing leathers a yellowish gray color.

Dogwood Dogwood blooms very early - in February. It happens that even the snowdrops do not appear, and the dogwood is already in bloom. In a sleeping February forest, a blooming dogwood is an unexpected and joyful sight. Bloom stretches for a long time. It would seem that with such an early flowering and fruits, one should wait early, but no - only in late autumn its berries ripen. One of the legends of the Crimea is based on this discrepancy between early flowering and late ripening. "Cornel - shaitanova berry":

... When Allah created the world, he lay down to rest, and a blessed spring came on earth. Buds began to bloom, trees turned green, flowers began to appear. There was a lot of noise here. He grabs one thing, he pulls another, quarrel among themselves, swear. Allah could not resist, woke up and began to restore order. First of all, he called everyone to his place and said: “My foolish children! You will ruin all the gardens. I command each of you to choose a plant for yourself in order to use it only in the future. "

What started here! Some asks for a cherry, some for an apple tree, some for a peach. He approached Allah and Shaitan. "And what did you choose?" Allah asked.

- Dogwood.

- Why dogwood?

- So, - Shaitan did not want to tell the truth.

“Okay, take the dogwood,” Allah decided.

Shaitan jumped merrily, of course - he deftly outwitted everyone by begging for a dogwood. Dogwood is the first to bloom, which means that it will yield a crop earlier than other plants. And the first berry, as you know, is the most expensive. But then summer has come, the fruits of cherries, cherries, apples, pears, peaches began to ripen. And the dogwood was still not ripe and still remained hard and green. The Shaitan is sitting under a tree, angry: "Yes, ripen quickly, shaitan's berry!" Dogwood does not ripen. Then Shaitan began to blow on the berries, and they turned red-red, like a flame, but, as before, they remained hard and sour.

- Well, how is your dogwood? - people asked Shaitan.

- Disgusting, not berries, take them for yourself.

In late autumn, when the harvest in the gardens was already harvested, people went to the forest for dogwoods. Collecting tasty, ripe berries, they laughed at Shaitan: "Shaitan has miscalculated!"

And Shaitan, meanwhile, was furious with anger and thought how to take revenge on people. And he came up with it. The next fall, he made it so that the dogwood was born twice as large. But it took twice as much heat for it to mature. People were delighted with the big harvest, not suspecting that these were the tricks of Shaitan. And the sun was exhausted over the summer and could not send enough heat to the earth. And such a harsh winter came that all the gardens froze over, and the people remained barely alive. Since then, there has been a sign: if there is a large harvest of dogwood, it will be cold in winter.