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| starflower, borage |
An annual plant, native to the Mediterranean, belongs to the Borage family and either we cultivate it for its edible leaves or we find it naturally in cultivated areas. It is also used as ornamental for its beautiful flowers, the nectar of which the bees love.
Borage, the star flower has been known since antiquity - Pliny called it "delusional" because he thought he was extinguishing melancholy. That's why the ancients mumbled leaves and flowers of borage in wine. Cheers!
It is cultivated for pharmaceutical and culinary use. It contains mucus, tannin and traces of essential oil, and it often differs in its composition, so it is sometimes emollient and sometimes glissant. When the plant blooms, it gives an extract that is used as a sweating agent, as an appetite or blood purifying.
It is used against bile duct diseases, against fever, pneumonia, as an antitussive, against acute rheumatism and a host of other diseases such as measles, scarlet fever and smallpox (the last three diseases have almost disappeared from our country by vaccination, but guess what ingredient is coming into these vaccines :) - I write it because it seems, the new moms do not vaccinate their children. As I have said before, we do not substitute medical science because we don’t live at the Middle Ages).
In my first visit to Mani, in Greece, I learned that people use borage in their salads, which is plentiful there and they call it “little cucumber" since the smell of the plant resembles cucumber essense. Beware, however, because the plant contains small amounts of alkaloids that can damage the liver.
Consult your doctor for any use.
Borage seed oil is the largest plant source of gamma-linolenic acid at 17-28%, which explains why is accorded via vitamin tablets omega-6. It also contains fatty acids such as palmitate, stearate and oleic. It nourishes hair and skin, fights dandruff and dry skin, calms inflammation, relieves pain, swelling and stiffness of the joints. Because of the salicylic acid it contains, it helps skin conditions such as acne, psoriasis and eczema, while stimulates prematurely aged skin. It has antioxidant and anti-aging properties, restores elasticity of the skin and gives glow to the damaged skin.
Stella Crown©
