Love and celery - the same thing?

Perhaps the youngest children know about the beneficial properties of celery. According to legend, the use of this plant is so great that even the Greek gods used it to maintain eternal youth and beauty. On the domestic expanses with the same goals for a long time used twin brother celery - lovage. Their external similarity is so great that many doubt creeps in - is not this the same thing, celery and lovage. We will try to understand this issue together.

What does celery look like?

The most common representative of the family of umbellate celery is a biennial height of about 60-80 cm. There are three varieties of celery: leaf, cherezkovoy and root. Root celery forms a large root with a rounded shape, about 10 cm in diameter. Celery celery is distinguished by large leaves with dense petioles, and leafy celery and leaves and petioles are small. All parts of celery are suitable for food and have a strong spicy aroma.

What does a lovage look like?

Like celery, lovage treat the family of umbrellas. Stalk lyubovka can reach a height of 2 meters and has a naked surface of azure color, olive only at the top. The leaves of the lover are very similar to celery leaves, the same shiny and feathery. The aroma of this plant is also similar to celery, due to what the plant received the name of winter celery.

Lovestock and celery - differences

Despite the external similarity and close relationship, lovage and celery are still separate from each other plants and have a lot of differences:

1. Lyubistok refers to spices: its roots and herbs are used only as a seasoning, for flavoring various marinades and dishes, as well as for medicinal purposes. Even a small fraction of the green of the lover can give the food a peculiar "mushroom" flavor. Celery is a vegetable, its root and petioles can be used for food as separate dishes: for cooking salads, pickles and first courses.
2. The leaves of the lover have a much darker coloration than the leaves of the celery. The greens of celery are more gentle to the touch and to the taste - in lovage it is sharp, sharp and almost bitter.
3. Celery is a biennial plant, known for its capricious temper: it suffers from the slightest temperature changes, is afraid of cold weather and stagnation of water. Since the period of vegetation of celery takes a lot of time, mostly practice its seedling cultivation, seeds for which are sown in late February-early March. In open ground celery is transplanted in May, when the danger of recurrent frosts finally disappears. Lyubistok also refers to perennials and its cultivation on the site does not cause any trouble: it easily tolerates small frosts, grows rapidly, reaching a height of 2 meters. You can multiply lovage by dividing the bush, so sowing seeds in the open ground, and you can do it in spring and autumn. But in In most cases this plant multiplies itself, as a lot of its fall-sowing seeds safely germinate in the spring.
4. In folk medicine, lovage is most often used to treat various kinds of inflammatory processes, colds, etc. In addition, he was noticed and the ability to positively influence the intimate sphere, as evidenced by its name. It should be remembered that the lady in an interesting position, this plant is strictly contraindicated. Celery is famous for its ability to normalize metabolic processes, due to which it finds wide application in various diets.