The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Medicinal Trees, Redbud and Cypress

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. I'm going to try to get through a couple of medicinal trees today. And the first one is really appropriate because it's in bloom right now. It's redbud. I actually just Monday put out my big podcast, the Southern Appalachian Herbs podcast. You know, if you don't listen to that one, maybe you want to check it out. you know if you don't listen to that one maybe you want to check it out and um i talked about all the edible uses of red bud that is curciscanidensis it's actually somewhat medicinal as well but really important for many reasons one it's leguminous it's a nitrogen fixing tree you can plant it in your garden and let your tomatoes climb there, your cucumbers or whatever, and it will fertilize them. But the main thing I like it for is the buds. The blossoms are

Starting point is 00:00:53 delicious. They taste like sweet garden peas. This time of year, I'm out harvesting ramps and red bud blossoms like crazy. But let's look a little, it's a beautiful tree too. I mean, it's got those bright, you know, magenta colored flowers that even grow on the trunk. I mean, it really is a very different kind of tree than most that you will see where, you know, the flowers on the ends of the stems. It's all over the branches. And like I said, even the trunk sometime. sometime. Flowers are nutritious and of course edible and you know this was a really important plant for our ancestors who didn't have a lot of fresh vegetables through the winter. So early spring, really the end of winter when red buds starts to bloom, they'd have been gathering those flowers and eating them to get the vitamins they needed.

Starting point is 00:01:45 So medicinally, like I said, there's not a lot of medicinal information on this, but the bark is astringent. The inner bark is said to be the most potent. Tea made from the bark is used for fevers and diarrhea. It's also been used in folk medicine for cough and congestion. Beyond that, bees love it. And actually, there's a really old legend that you may have heard of. And this is so appropriate, of course, because this is the Easter weekend. It's believed that Judas, after betraying Jesus, hanged himself from a redbud tree. And you may actually know the tree by the folk name Judas tree, because that's what it's called. It was called traditionally, you know, I don't know. The limbs of a redbud are not very strong.

Starting point is 00:02:42 But you remember in the Bible, there are two legends, actually, or stories, I should say, about Judas. One that he hanged himself, and one that he fell from a height and burst. His guts came out. Could have very well been he did hang himself from a tree. The limb broke and fell to the ground, and he burst open. Redbuds don't grow that tall, though, so maybe it was one up on a hill or cliff. I don't know. It's not impossible that that was the same tree, but there's no real archaeological evidence as to that being the tree, just as there's an old legend that says the dogwood was the tree the cross was made out of. Probably not. But these are two trees that come into flower at about the same time at Easter. And so you can totally understand how these, you know, these legends kind of build up around them.

Starting point is 00:03:31 And I think, you know, I love folklore. To me, that's an endearing story any way you look at it. Well, the dogwood would. Yeah. You know, nothing endearing about hanging oneself. But anyway, you know what I'm saying. I love folklore. But Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests says that redbud or Judas tree,

Starting point is 00:03:54 Kirkus canadensis, grew abundantly in the swamps around Charleston around the time of the Civil War. It pretty much grows, it doesn't grow quite to my elevation. I have to go down the mountain. So it's Easter weekend. I'm visiting family in Pinehurst, North Carolina. And they're everywhere. Beautiful, bright red trees. And I just had the coolest experience.

Starting point is 00:04:20 I think y'all that aren't from the South don't really understand what the South is all about. The way it's portrayed on television is nothing like the real South. I mean, I grew up in an area where white folks were the minority. I mean, it was majority black and Lumbee Indian. And then the rest of the time on the mountain where there were more, I guess, Cherokee and Catawba Indians than there were black folk. Very few black people in the mountains.

Starting point is 00:04:51 No one knows why, but it tends to be a largely Scots-Irish area. Never had any racial issues, honestly. Had black friends growing up, you know, old black ladies that would invite me into their house and give me cookies. I mean, you know, it was just never an issue. Like they act like it is on television. So I was at the grocery store about an hour ago and there's this little old black lady in there, probably about 90 years old. I mean, she was really up in years. And I said, Hey, how you doing? You know, I was passing by her and I'm doing great. I'm going to see the years. And I said, hey, how you doing? You know, I was passing by her.

Starting point is 00:05:25 I'm doing great. I'm going to see the king. And I looked at her and I'm thinking, man, this is a really old lady. I hope she's okay. You know, I didn't know exactly what I said. Are you going to church? She said, yeah, I'm going to see King Jesus. And I want you to come with me.

Starting point is 00:05:40 I mean, it's just as sweet as could be, you know. And I told her, well, I actually got a little chest cold right now, I've been dealing with like a little bit of a flu, I think probably for the past week or so, but it's really settled, you know, in my lungs, and I said, I'm not even sure if I'm gonna be able to make it for church on Easter, and boy, I mean, she just started praying at the top of her lungs that I would be healed. And I mean, I don't, I've never heard of anyone saying stuff like that happens up north or in the Midwest. But man, I mean, you know, that's actually a common, fairly common occurrence in the South. I've been in that store, the same grocery store in Pinehurst, North Carolina, between Pinehurst and Aberdeen.

Starting point is 00:06:35 And it's a food line and at least five times spoken to someone white black um yeah maybe lumbi indian but mostly whites and blacks around here and they just start praying for me i mean just like out of the clear. It is like so nice is what it is. You know, if you maybe start talking politics to someone, you can get into an argument, but there is nobody around here and anywhere really in North Carolina, at least outside of Charlotte and Chapel Hill and the really liberal cities, where someone isn't just totally open about their religion, their faith. And I mean, mostly Christian, obviously, but I was actually in that same store probably six months ago. Yeah, it was in the fall. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:07:18 it's a big military area. And there's some like translators and such that have come here from, you know, Kuwait and Afghanistan and all that. And there was a Muslim fellow in there. And I can't remember. I asked him a question. There's a greeting that they usually do, and I couldn't remember how the second word, how it was pronounced. And I said, if you don't mind, I said, I'm not Muslim, but I've known some Muslim folks,

Starting point is 00:07:44 and this is the way they greet each other. Am I pronouncing this right? And he just, I mean, he was obviously a translator. He walked me through, like, you know, the entire, like, Arabic history of this language, you know. And just as nice a guy. I mean, people are just so open about their faith in the South. It's wonderful. It really is.

Starting point is 00:08:03 People are just so open about their faith in the South. It's wonderful. It really is. And I hope at some point, as much as I do not want to encourage a lot of Yankees to move to North Carolina, we got enough already, trust me, especially in Piners. I do hope y'all get to visit at some point and actually experience the real culture, not the stuff you see on TV and not the stuff you're going to encounter in large cities. You know, Fayetteville is called Vietnam for a reason. It's always had a very high crime rate.

Starting point is 00:08:35 A lot of people live there that aren't from there whatsoever. You know, a lot of Muslims, actually. A lot of Asians, and most of them are great folks. I mean, yeah, I've known some really fantastic, you know, Chinese, oh, especially Vietnamese. I got a great Vietnamese community. So, I mean, I don't have anything against anybody from the outside. It's when somebody moves to the South from the North to make the South like the North, you know, the area they left, the area they got away from because of high taxes and crime suddenly they start telling

Starting point is 00:09:05 people what to do in the south that don't fly trust me we don't like that we don't like that at all but uh we're pretty welcoming folks i mean to everybody really and you know i'm gonna be doing a plant walk in pinehurst uh probably around april 15th somewhere a weekend one side or the other of that date weather depending so email me judson at judsoncarroll.com if you uh want more information you want to know what date it is and maybe you'd like to come join us people are coming from all over um there's some emails from people who are really interested in it and this is the sandhills a little later in the spring i'm going to do one of the mountains you know so i'll keep keep you updated on that as well.

Starting point is 00:09:46 Mountain culture and Sandhills culture is actually very similar. Both were very heavily settled by the Scots-Irish. It's just Sandhills, you've got a lot more black folk. And in the mountains, very few, actually. And the Indian tribes are different. I mean, you know, down here you have the Lumbees. It's 50,000 members of the Lumbee tribes. You're going to be running into lums one way or the other.

Starting point is 00:10:13 Up on the mountain, the Cherokee have mostly gravitated toward Cherokee, North Carolina. And, you know, you may know, you know, several people from the Catawba tribe and not even know that they're Indian, Native American. I mean, they just totally blend right in. It's more of a homogenous culture, I guess I would say, in the mountains as opposed to the sand hills and such. But anyway, back to the redbud tree, which is just gorgeous, growing everywhere around here. And I had a big old handful of the blossoms just a couple of days ago. grow it everywhere around here and i had a big old handful of the blossoms just a couple days ago and i've been out in the mountains you know before i got down here this week uh harvesting ramps like

Starting point is 00:10:51 crazy so if you want to know about ramps uh listen to my southern appalachian herbs podcast my absolute favorite wild edible but back to the tree uh resources southern fields and forest Resources of Southern Fields and Forests says that the blossoms are used in salads. Yes, that's exactly the way I use them. But are said to be a remedy for urinary complaints and obstructions of the liver and spleen. Decoction of the bark is very astringent. Often combine redbud blossoms with forsythia blossoms. Forsythia is bright yellow. It's blooming right now as well. The white stem end of forsythia is very bitter, so pluck that off.

Starting point is 00:11:33 Then you can combine the two in salads. You can throw them in with some butter, olive oil, and salt and cook them. They're really, really delicious. One of those really pretty garnishes if you want to impress a lady you know bake some fish and or something and or some chicken you know yeah do it like maybe a lemon pepper chicken i can go for that right now and put some forsythia and red bone blossoms maybe a few violet flowers you know over the top and that always goes over very well but um peterson field for Eastern Central Medicinal Plants says,

Starting point is 00:12:07 the inner bark is highly astringent. An obscure medicinal agent was once used for diarrhea and dysentery. They mean it's very poorly worded. They just mean it was used for diarrhea and dysentery, but we don't know much about it these days because it's fallen out of use. Therefore, it's become obscure. But apparently, it was also a folk cancer remedy for leukemia. I have absolutely no more information on that.

Starting point is 00:12:38 If you're interested, I never recommend any herbs for cancer. It's like, you know, I draw the line. I don't want to get people's hopes up. Who knows? But if you have an interest in herbs to treat leukemia, you may want to do some more research on that. See if there's any documentation in medical journals. And they say the flowers are edible.

Starting point is 00:13:00 They're actually quite delicious. Now, the other one I wanted to do today, very short entry on this is so hard to pronounce it is c-h-a-m-a-e-c-y-p-I-D-E-S, thiodes. So Chimaecyparis thiodes is the closest I'm going to get to it. It's called Atlantic white cedar, which is crazy easier to say. And I'm just going to stick with Atlantic white cedar. There's only one variety in my region.

Starting point is 00:13:44 It grows down the coastal swamps. It's actually fairly common in the swamps, up into the sand hills. Well, I shouldn't say common. I've seen it, you know, I mean, I knew it growing up in the swampy area of the eastern United States, my grandparents' farm, Bladen County. It was there. I mean, I recognized this tree when I saw it. It's called white cedar, but it's actually a cypress. Got a lot of cypress in the swamp.

Starting point is 00:14:18 Tons of cypress in the swamp. And although it was very likely used medicinally by Native Americans, it would be like the Waccamaw and the Lumbee in the area and the Chikora. I haven't been able to find anything in Native American herbal medicine. They didn't write it down. What can I say? But it has been used medicinally in other regions. Plants for a future list, Atlantic white cedar, also called white cypress, by the way. I'm not going to try to pronounce the Latin name again.

Starting point is 00:14:53 It says, a decoction of the leaves has been used as an herbal steam for treating headaches and backaches. A poultice made from the crushed leaves and bark has been applied to the head to treat headaches. It also states that a decoction of the sap from the Lawson cypress, that's a closely related cypress, is a powerful diuretic. And of the Nutka cypress, the plant has been used in sweat baths for treating rheumatism and arthritis. The plant has been used in sweat baths for treating rheumatism and arthritis. An infusion of the branch tips has been used as a wash for sores and swelling. A poultice of the crushed tea has been applied to sores.

Starting point is 00:15:37 The soft bark has been used as a cover for poultices. So that's all I've got on Atlantic White Cedar or Chamae cypress thyoides. If you find out anything more about this tree, please let me know. And I'm going to wrap it up there. Like I said, my lungs are kind of a mess right now between the pollen and whatever this virus is. Pollen is so heavy here. Okay, look, pollen and whatever this virus is pollen is so heavy here okay look sandhills in north carolina pollen is insane the pine pollen is like literally laying a quarter inch thick on the ground and on the car and everything and the dogwoods and and uh azaleas are just starting so i'm not even sure if i've got a cold or if it's just like full-blown allergies. But I am going to wrap it up. I just wanted to mention that by April 15th, the pollen would have run its course.

Starting point is 00:16:33 That cycle will have ended. It will actually be pretty darn nice in the spring in this area. So I hope you will be able to join me. Remember, all this information about medicinal trees comes from my book, The Medicinal Trees of the American Southeast. It's actually got a long title, probably longer than I should have given it. Look up An Herbalist's Guide to the Medicinal Trees of the Southeast, available on Amazon or directly from me as a PDF.

Starting point is 00:17:01 But if you want the print copy, you've got to get it from Amazon. Anyway, y'all have a great week. I hope you have a wonderful, blessed Easter. I hope you get to spend time with your family. I absolutely hope you go to church of your choice. And, you know, remember, I know my entire audience is not Christian. I don't mean to offend anyone, but I am a Christian. I'm a Catholic, actually, and very outspoken about that. And I think, let me think, I think it was Pope John Paul II was fond of saying, Christians are Easter people.

Starting point is 00:17:41 You know, we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ. We, you know, go to church on Sundays and all that. The most important date in the entire history of time was Easter Sunday, when Jesus rose from the grave. We are Easter people, born anew, and through a Christ who took on all the penalty of every sin ever committed in the past, in the present, in the future, under the Mosaic law, was crucified and died for those sins. The penalty for mortal sin is death, after all, and then rose rose again and every person who's baptized becomes part of the body of Christ we are actually share in the divinity of Christ far more so in heaven than we do on earth but we as part of the body of Christ because time does not exist outside of our lives,

Starting point is 00:18:47 we were crucified with Christ and have risen with Christ and are new people born to new lives. And saints in the making. And this is the day we should celebrate more than any other day in the entire year it's more important than our birthdays or christmas or fourth of july i mean it is we are easter people so just you know enjoy it you know have a big big Easter ham and some good spring greens and, you know, give a lot of candy to children. And if somebody is, you know, lonely or sick and you can visit them or brighten their day, do it. You know, our hope is that we're going to spend eternity together in heaven in constant joy and peace and celebration. in constant joy and peace and celebration.

Starting point is 00:19:52 Easter Sunday is a day where we should each strive to bring heaven to earth. Experience that brotherhood, that fellowship, that family right here, right now. Anyway, y'all, have a good one. I'll talk to you next time. The information in this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say

Starting point is 00:20:29 is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience and if I believe in herbs help me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research,

Starting point is 00:21:06 make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.

The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Medicinal Trees, Redbud and Cypress

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