How to grow the spring adonis
How to grow the spring adonis
The spring adonide or yellow adonide (Adonis vernalis L.) is a herbaceous species found throughout Europe that in Italy is easily found spontaneously in Venezia Giulia and Istria. This plant is characterized by having flowers similar to buttercups, of a golden yellow color and with a diameter of up to 6 cm, with a bushy, low (not more than 25-30 cm) and early flowering at the beginning of spring. In this sheet we will see how to grow the spring adonis and its particular uses.
The spring adonide spreads by seed or by division even if the latter form is to be preferred because the seeds (which must be fresh) open with particular difficulty. It is a poisonous plant, which succeeds in transmitting the toxicity to milk of cows and goats that have eaten it and for this reason we must be careful, in the farms to the pastures of which they feed these animals. In fact, the spring adonide contains a characteristic alkaloid, adonidine, and 2 glucosides, adonidosine and adonivernosine, which have a cardiotonic and diuretic action similar to that of digitaline.
Symptoms of poisoning occur with nausea, vomiting, gastric pains, diarrhea, excitement, followed by paralysis and coma.
For its cultivation, since the leaf is very jagged, with narrow lobes, green, tender, almost feathery, to make a small visible stain it is necessary to dispose at least 5-7 plants at 20-30 cm from each other. The land where it is preferable to grow them, even if it is very rustic plants, must be not too humid and without stagnations, even alkaline, in full sun or in partial shade. Because of their rusticity, it should be remembered that they are plants essentially from a rock garden or for cultivation in pots. The Adonis vernalis, however, does not tolerate the proximity of other plants that are too competitive, especially if they are shrubby. Before sowing it is good to add to the soil the organic substance which, preferably should be of the well-mature manure or compost, to be mixed with the first working of the soil.
As for adversities and diseases, the spring adonide is quite resistant and rustic but it is essential to avoid water stagnations that can lead to radical rot.
From the plant, with exclusion from the root, we extract the drug whose active ingredients are: Cimarina and Adoniside, which are used in medicine as cardiotonic.