Edelweiss has these other names too, did you know?

Morphological characteristics of edelweiss

Leontopodium is a perennial herbaceous plant, with plants 15-45cm tall. The underground stem is thick and sturdy, wrapped by short leaf sheaths, with numerous clustered flowering stems and root shoots of the same form as the flowering stems, without a rosette leaf cluster. The flowering stem is upright, relatively thin, covered with gray-white long soft hairs or white nearly silky hairs, unbranched or sometimes with corymbose or nearly raceme-like inflorescence branches in the upper part, with denser leaves in the lower part, sparser leaves in the upper part, internodes 5-20mm long, sometimes reaching 10cm in the upper part. Leaves are upright, linear or linear-lanceolate, 2-4.5cm long, 0.2-0.5cm wide, without sheath, sessile, gray-green on the upper surface, covered with soft hairs, densely woolly white or gray-white on the lower surface or sometimes silky. Bracts are few, slightly shorter than the upper leaves, oblong or linear, covered with white or gray-white thick tomentum on both surfaces or the lower surface, more or less spreading into a bract group in male plants, more or less upright in female plants, not arranged into an obvious bract group. The capitulum is large, 7-10mm in diameter in female plants, 3-7 densely clustered, rarely 1 or more, often with longer peduncles arranged in corymbs in female plants; the involucre is hemispherical, 4-6mm long, covered with white woolly hairs; involucral bracts about 4 layers, often narrowly pointed, slightly exposed above the tomentum; florets dioecious, rarely monoecious; male corolla about 3.5mm long, narrowly funnel-shaped, with small lobes; female corolla filiform, growing after flowering, 4.5-5mm long; pappus white, about 4mm long; male pappus with serrations or hair-like teeth; female pappus with minute teeth; fertile ovary hairless with papillary protrusions. The achene is oblong, yellow-brown, about 1mm long, with papillary protrusions or dense coarse hairs. Flowering and fruiting period is July-October.

The functional value of edelweiss

Ornamental value. Leontopodium is a precious flower. It has the characteristic of being beautiful in both flower and leaf, with a small and exquisite plant shape, brilliant silver-gray leaves, and white inflorescences like snow, simple and elegant. At the same time, it has the advantages of drought tolerance and barren tolerance, and is also a perennial herbaceous plant, so it is especially suitable for rock garden planting or potted ornamental use.

Medicinal value. Leontopodium is famous for its unique medicinal value, nature cold, taste slightly bitter. It has the effects of clearing heat and cooling blood, tonifying the kidney and promoting diuresis, mainly treating acute and chronic nephritis and hematuria, and is effective in eliminating proteinuria and hematuria. Folk single prescriptions are used to treat nephritis edema, with relatively significant effects.

Beauty effects. Edelweiss is now also increasingly used in the beauty field. Edelweiss is cold in nature, and its essence contains rich minerals, can clear heat and cool blood, has soothing, calming, whitening and nourishing protective effects on the skin, and is extremely effective against skin aging, making it a natural beauty treasure for local Swiss women. In addition, as various countries research and extract edelweiss components, researchers have found that edelweiss also has strong detoxifying and acne-removing effects on the skin.

Local origins and varieties of edelweiss

Edelweiss originates from high-altitude regions of Europe. It is one of the famous alpine flowers and is known as the famed flower of the Alps. There are about 40 species of edelweiss, distributed in the Alps region of Asia and Europe. This flower usually grows above 1700 meters altitude in the Alps, and because it only grows on very rare rocky ground, it is extremely scarce.

In Yuxian County, Hebei Province, which is known as the "Sky Grassland" in our country, this grass is locally called "huorongcao" (Leontopodium), and because this grass has a special smell, when used to feed livestock, the livestock dislike it and refuse to eat it, and before it was known to be the precious edelweiss, most tourists coming to the "Sky Grassland" would not pick this flower either, because its appearance is not at all dazzling and it has no fragrance. After the local government learned that this flower is edelweiss, it took protective measures here, prohibited grazing, and the yurts originally set up on this grassland were also withdrawn. Also after the discovery of edelweiss, the number of tourists coming to the "Sky Grassland" increased greatly, and with the fame brought by edelweiss, Yuxian County, in addition to being the "Hometown of Paper Cutting," gained another name - "Hometown of Edelweiss."