Do you really know edelweiss? A complete guide to this plant

Morphological characteristics of edelweiss

Edelweiss is a perennial herbaceous plant, with plants 15-45cm tall. The underground stem is thick and strong, wrapped in short leaf sheaths, with many clustered flowering stems and root shoots of the same form as the flowering stems, and no rosette leaf clusters. The flowering stem is upright and rather slender, covered with grayish-white long soft hairs or white nearly silky hairs, unbranched or sometimes with corymb-like or nearly racemose inflorescence branches on the upper part, with denser leaves on the lower part and sparser leaves on the upper part, internodes 5-20mm long, sometimes reaching 10cm on the upper part. Leaves are upright, linear or linear-lanceolate, 2-4.5cm long, 0.2-0.5cm wide, sheathless, sessile, grayish-green on the upper surface and covered with soft hairs, and covered with white or grayish-white dense cottony hairs or sometimes silky hairs on the lower surface. Bracts are few, slightly shorter than the upper leaves, oblong or linear, covered with white or grayish-white thick woolly hairs on both surfaces or the lower surface, more or less spreading into a bract group in male plants, and 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 a corymb in female plants; the involucre is hemispherical, 4-6mm long, covered with white cottony hairs; the involucral bracts are about 4 layers, often narrowly pointed, slightly protruding above the hairs; florets are dioecious, rarely monoecious; the male corolla is about 3.5mm long, narrowly funnel-shaped, with small lobes; the female corolla is filiform, growing after flowering, 4.5-5mm long; the pappus is white, about 4mm long; the pappus of male flowers has serrations or hair-like teeth; the pappus of female flowers has minute teeth; the fertile ovary is hairless and has papillae. The achene is oblong, yellowish-brown, about 1mm long, with papillae or dense coarse hairs. The flowering and fruiting period is July-October.

The functional value of edelweiss

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

Medicinal value. Edelweiss is famous for its unique medicinal value, is cold in nature, and slightly bitter in taste. It has the effects of clearing heat and cooling blood, tonifying the kidney and promoting diuresis, and is mainly used to treat 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 more widely used in the beauty field. Edelweiss is cold in nature, and its essence contains rich minerals. It can clear heat and cool blood, and has soothing, calming, whitening, and nourishing protective effects on the skin. It is extremely effective in resisting skin aging and is a natural beauty treasure of local women in Switzerland. In addition, as countries research and extract edelweiss ingredients, researchers have found that edelweiss also has a strong detoxifying and acne-removing effect on the skin.

Local producing areas and varieties of edelweiss

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

In Yuxian County, Hebei Province, China, known as the "Air Grassland", this grass is locally called "huorongcao". Because this grass has a special smell, when used to feed livestock, the livestock dislike it and refuse to eat it. Before people knew it was the precious edelweiss, most tourists who came to the "Air Grassland" would not pick this flower either, because its appearance is not at all showy or eye-catching, and it has no fragrance. After the local government learned that this flower was edelweiss, it took protection measures here, prohibited grazing, and the yurts originally set up on this grassland were also removed. Also after the discovery of edelweiss, the number of people traveling to the "Air Grassland" increased greatly. With the fame brought by edelweiss, in addition to being the "Hometown of Paper Cutting", Yuxian County gained another name - "Hometown of Edelweiss".