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| Blauwarte voted Plant of Europe 2005 |
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In collaboration with the Institute for  Geobotany at the University of Hanover and the Institute for History of Medicine at the University of Würzburg, the Dr. Pandalis Foundation has now awarded the title "Plant of Europe 2005" to the wild vegetable Blauwarte (Cichorium intybus ssp. silvestre).
Botany
Blauwarte (Cichorium intybus ssp. silvestre) is a native plant of the temperate zones of Europe, the Near East and Africa and grows mainly at the edge of woods and on fallow land. The strikingly attractive blue blossom of the squarrous plant appear either in individual formations or small groups in the axils. They whither quickly but are soon replaced by new blossom. The flowering time is between July and September during the morning and the flowers always turn towards the sun. These movements are also known as "helionastie".
The few leaves of the plant are feathery at the bottom, becoming more simplified in form towards the top. The root resembles a spindle-like turnip. Cichorium intybus ssp. silvestre can reach a size of up to two metres, however on poor ground it does not grow any higher than 15 cm.
History
The ancient Greeks and Romans already knew Blauwarte as a medicinal plant and a vegetable. Various antique and medieval authors, including Theophrastus, Horace, Dioskurides, Hildegard von Bingen and Hieronymus Bock devoted considerable attention to the plant.
Our European ancestors boiled the young leaf shoots in salty water, added butter and ate them as a vegetable or cooked them together with meat. The leaves and roots have always been effectively used in home medicine. In particular their calming, anti-inflammatory and digestion-promoting properties have been highly esteemed in popular medicine for many generations.
Areas of application
As scientists recently discovered, the "Plant of Europe 2005" unfurls its healing properties particularly well in combination with certain other indigenous vegetable and spice plants. A particularly distinctive feature of Blauwarte is its extraordinary wealth of secondary vegetable substances, such as the calming bitter principles lactucin and lactucopikrin. Furthermore – depending on where it comes from – it can have a very high content of vegetable-bound chrome. This essential trace element is to be found particularly in unadulterated vegetable foods, but it is almost completely absent from processed products. The influence of chrome means an increase in the concentration of tryptophan in the blood and in the brain. Tryptophan is important in creating the mood-elevating hormone serotonin and the calming hormone melatonin.
A study on Blauwarte is currently being conducted at the Charité Berlin. The first results of a preliminary study are very promising. The appraiser Prof. Dr. Dr. Holger Kiesewetter ascertained a significant improvement in the feelings of agitation in almost 75% of participants after a test phase of just four weeks. Furthermore, according to his observations, 69 % of the test participants were less tense and less lacking in drive than beforehand, whilst 65 % could clearly reduce their levels of nervousness.
Blauwarte is to be found growing at the edge of woods or on fallow ground (between July and September),or it can be purchased at the chemists as well as in health-food shops.
*In literature "Blauwarte" is normally described by its botanical name of Cichorium intybus ssp. silvestre.
The Dr. Pandalis Foundation has made it its task to select a wild, forgotten, edible as well as ecologically not endangered European plant to become the "Plant of Europe". This plant is then the focal point for the whole year and it is intended to bring this plant closer to human beings in its entirety and especially in its traditional use by means of PR measures. The aim is to re-awaken and discuss in this way the forgotten knowledge of our ancestors.
Which plant receives this distinction will be decided by a body of experts to which Prof. Dr. Richard Pott from the Institut für Geobotanik der Universität Hannover and Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. Gundolf Keil from the Institut für Medizingeschichte in Würzburg belong.
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