These are a genre of herbaceous plants or shrubs which are part of the Asteraceae family, which come from the northern areas and from many parts of South America, which in turn have spread throughout Europe.
There is a variety of approximately 30 different species of plants annual or constant ragweed, which grow especially in flat regions, with low humidity and sandy soil. Some of the ragweed species are capable of producing large amounts of pollen and due to their anemochoric spread represents one of the main causes of hay fever.
Ragweed with herbs or shrubs are short, but some other species They can grow to about 4 meters tall.
They have hispid stems of a straight shape, which can also be found in dense plants of about half a meter in diameter and basal-shaped branches, where the roots of this shrub tend to be pointed and they go quite deep, making it difficult to remove them.
The leaves that it has are bipinnathifid, lobed in shape, with petioles that appear winged, with a grayish-green or silver-colored on the face of the leaf and on the underside, which are opposite at the base and alternately between the highest branches of the plant and it is fair to say that these plants are monoecious, produce spike-like inflorescences that are supported by leaves attached to male flowers, which are yellowish-green in color, disc-like in shape and they can measure about 3 millimeters in diameter approx.
The female flowers of ragweed have a somewhat whitish color, simple in shape, with axillaries that are located in a lower part that the male flowers and in turn lack papo.
The sexual fertilization of the plant is produced by the wind, which are pollen grains, which in turn a single plant is capable of producing a quantity of up to 1.000 billion in a single season, moreover, this occurs in the season with high humidity and in the middle of the summer season.
The fruit that the plant produces is covered with thorns, with a shape similar to an ovoid, which has a single small seed inside brown in color and shaped like the tip of an arrow. Ragweed is a species of plant that can be found throughout the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere of the world and also in northern South America.
They are shrubs that prefer very sandy soils, with little fertility, with a slightly alkaline composition and they are also frequent photophiles. Ragweed breed spontaneously on roadsides, in more rural areas, and on the banks of rivers found in the plains.
This shrub is used in natural medicine due to the astringent properties, febrifuge and emetic that have their leaves.
They can be used to treat pneumonia, illnesses such as fever, nausea, diarrhea and some others such as muscle spasms. They can also be used externally to counteract those insect bites and their juice has certain disinfectant properties that can be used to treat wounds that may have been infected for any reason.
In the same way, the roots of the plant when they are dry, can be used to prepare infusions, using them in this way for the treatment of disorders that may occur in menstruation and for stroke. It should also be said that ragweed pollen is used by the pharmaceutical industry to prepare medicines for counteract allergy symptoms.