Tulip Tree Bits!

Mother's Day Sunday was rather soggy here. But that didn't stop me from wandering around the garden with my mom as she showed me all of her latest lovelies. I bought her a foam flower a few years ago for a problem shady spot she was trying to coax to life, and between that and all of her hostas and hellebores she has a magnificent little hideaway going now. On the sunny side of things, her butterfly weed, stoke's aster and passionflower are gorgeous, and the gardenias are absolute show stoppers this year.

She knows that I have been wanting some tulip tree branches, but the storms so far haven't brought down any limbs. So, after our garden tour, she provided me with the long handled garden shears and pointed out where the trees in the back yard have some low-hanging branches.

My herbal escapades are generally a source of interest and amusement within our family, and Sunday was no different. My brother appeared in short order, to enquire if I was gnawing on the shrubberies again. He gamely chewed on the twig I handed him, and agreed with me that it smells nice but tastes a little bitter. My dad came outside, in time to observe my brother making faces. He declined my offer of a twig of his own. . .

I chose a branch that was crossing over some of the other branches. I figured if I was going to be a pest and take a branch rather than wait for a windfall, the least I could do was select one that could potentially cause problems later on if left to its own devices.

Then I broke the branch down into manageable pieces and brought it home.

Once home, I stripped the bark from the twigs. The inner bark slides off very easily if you choose the right time of year (spring is good) and then it's just a matter of separating the rough outer bark from the inner.

Green/yellow inner bark and brown outer bark.

The outer bark is basically dead cells that protect the active inner bark (think skin on top of blood vessels in human terms) so I didn't worry too much about stripping it all off. A veggie peeler works really well for this step.

Inner bark after using the vegetable peeler.

 Then I shredded the bark a little finer, and snipped it into shorter pieces with kitchen shears.

Next, the bark bits went into a jar with some vodka. I didn't realize I was almost out of vodka, but I had enough to cover the bark. Looks like just enough. . .

The larger portions of the branch yielded thicker and juicier bark.

 The eclectics used either alcohol or cold water preparations of liriodendron- they believed hot water preparations destroyed the useful constituents of the herb, so vodka should make a nice extract.

Two minutes in the menstruum and already taking on the principles of the herb.

Mmmmm, Tulip Tree bits! Time to go do some more research and take a look at the amount the Eclectics used in any given case. Most modern herbalists use 15-30 drops of an extract up to several times a day for an adult, but it really depends on the person and the herb. . .

Honeysuckle (Lonicera Japonica)

This beautiful flower is from a Honeysuckle vine, lonicera japonica, or Japanese Honeysuckle. Although there are several species of native honeysuckle that grow throughout North America, this is the honeysuckle most people are familiar with. It has a heady aroma and flashy appearance that attract attention.

Although it was innocently introduced in the 1800s as a garden ornamental, this plant has made its way onto the USDA's invasive weed list, maligned for its habit of smothering and wreaking havoc on native plant habitat. Birds love the little blue-black berries that appear on the vines in the fall, and are generally the main carriers of the seeds, spreading them out over large areas.

Surprisingly, this beautiful nuisance has a hidden artistic talent. How about some honeysuckle paper and ink? Patterson Clark, who writes the Washington Post column Urban Jungle,  is a visual artist who searches out invasive plants around DC. He takes the plants back to his studio, where he processes them into paper and ink to use in his artwork. American Craft Magazine wrote an interesting article on what he does, and his website is here at Alienweeds. According to Clark, the leaves of honeysuckle make a greenish black ink, and the inner bark of the stems makes a golden yellow paper. 

But honeysuckle doesn't stop there. It's a useful member of the traditional herbal community as well! According to Traditional Chinese Herbalism, Vol 2, by Michael and Leslie Tierra, the young stems of honeysuckle are useful for supporting joint health in cases of arthritis and rheumatism, while the flowers are used across a broad spectrum of Heat* disorders.

Plus, most herbalists here in the south could easily pick a basketful of the flowers to make their own extract, and do native plants a favor in the process. Honeysuckle could also be used as a substitute for traditional Heat clearing herbs such as goldenseal and echinacea, which both face over-harvesting pressure and should be carefully obtained through companies with sustainable harvest practices when used.  

*Herbalists use the term Heat to describe the human body being out of balance in a way that might be expressed as fever, inflammation, soreness, redness, pain, swelling, or abcesses.

Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron Tulipifera)

Tulip Poplar, Tulipifera Liriodendron, is one of the most strangely beautiful trees of the southeast, thanks to it's elegant growth habits and rather bizarre flowers. The trees grow very tall and straight, and have slightly drooping branches with broad, uniquely shaped leaves. There were several old tulip trees in my backyard when I was a kid. The twigs had a sweet, mysterious scent that I loved.

Revisiting the trees this year, I was intrigued again by the smell of the fresh twigs. I wondered if these magnificent trees have an herbal tradition behind them. 

  
In fact, they do. All parts of the tree, from leaves to seeds to bark to root, seem to have been employed at least some of the time, but the inner bark or root seem to have been the most popular.

The tree seems to have been used in a lot of different ways: as a nervine, tonic, stimulant, anthelmentic, febrifuge, anti-rheumatic, gastrointestinal aid, and anti-diarrheal.The bark was used for intermittent fevers, and it was sometimes used as a substitute for cinchona.

(By the way, cinchona is the stuff that the tonic water of gin-and-tonic fame was originally made of, so of course now I'm wondering what a Tulip Tree gin and tonic would taste like. Sounds like a fun experiment to me!)

Other uses included an ingredient in cough syrup and as a wash or poultice for wounds and broken bones.

From what I read, Cook, in The Physiomedical Dispensatory, 1869, sums up it's uses in the Eclectic literature very nicely:

"The bark of the liriodendron is one of the mildest and least bitter of the tonics, chiefly relaxant and only moderately stimulant, but with no astringency whatever. While it improves the appetite and digestion to a fair extent, and for this purpose is unsurpassed in convalescence, its most valuable action is upon the nervous system and uterus. In nervousness, nervous irritability, hysteria, and chronic pains through the womb, it is an agent of the greatest efficacy–both soothing and sustaining. The menses are not influenced by it; but it proves valuable in chronic dysmenorrhea as well as in leucorrhea, prolapsus of a mild grade, and the uterine suffering incident to pregnancy. By its influence on the nervous system it sometimes promotes the flow of urine; and it favors greater freedom of the bowels, without being in any sense cathartic. If combined with spikenard, boneset, or other agents influencing the lungs, its virtues will be directed largely to these organs; and then is of peculiar service in old coughs and pulmonary weakness. The mildness of its action sometimes suggests inertness, but this is quite an error; for its gentleness increases its value as a peculiar nervine tonic, and makes it very acceptable to the stomach; though it is not an agent fitted to languid or sluggish conditions, or states of depression." 

Translation: Cook thinks it useful for certain female problems, as a digestive tonic useful for improving the appetite and digestion after illness, and that it has very gentle but effective actions on the nervous system. He also states that if it is used with lung supporting herbs it helps with old coughs and helps strengthen the lungs.

Scudder, in Specific Medication and Specific Medicines, 1870, stated that

"It is stimulant and tonic to the digestive apparatus, improving digestion and blood making. It also exerts an influence upon the nervous system, strengthening innervation and relieving those symptoms called nervous."

So, Scudder seconds that it is a nervine and useful as a digestive aid.

I would love to work with this tree when I get the chance. It's not available from any commercial sources that I can tell, so it will have to go on my wild crafting wish list for the time being. I'm sure some of the trees behind my parents' house will drop a few limbs before the summer is over- that seems to be typical for them when summer storms come through, if I remember correctly. Interestingly, the Eclectics believed it could be effectively extracted in either alcohol or with cold water, but that boiling destroyed its active principles.

King's American Dispensatory and Lloyd's Drugs and Medicines of North America have more great info on Tulip Tree, and thanks to Henriette's Herbal web page and blog, they are available to read for free online.
Also, one of my other standby online references, the University of Michigan's ethnobotanical database, turned up a good general list of historical uses: just type 'liriodendron' into the search box to repeat the search.