The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Sweet Leaf, Tamarisk and Cypress

Starting point is 00:00:00 hey y'all welcome this week's show today we're going to talk about a couple of trees that are useful medicinally as we continue our series of the medicinal uses of trees and we're going to start with a short one and it's called sweet leaf it's SimplocS is the Latin name. And there are four varieties that have been found useful in herbal medicine. One is native to my region, and it's Symplocos tinctura. Plants for a future, only states of this plant, the bitter aromatic roots have been used as a tonic. A decoction of this grape root has been used in the treatment of fevers i don't have any more information on that

Starting point is 00:00:50 one sorry wish i did but i got a lot of information on the next and it is tamarisk now tamarisk is a pretty pretty common uh tree actually it's uh tamarix is the uh latin name-A-M-A-R-I-X. 14 varieties have been documented use in herbal medicine and there are actually a lot in my region. It really surprised me because honestly I haven't paid too much attention to this one. It seems to be naturalized. I guess people either brought them in as ornamentals or maybe by accident. A lot of plants, especially what you might call weeds, are not native to here. And some were planted intentionally like dandelion and plantain and chicory and all that

Starting point is 00:01:44 to be used as food and medicine. Others of course come in accidentally. The seeds get stuck to somebody's clothing or they come in in shipment. I think probably the most obvious of those is in terms of trees is the princess tree one of my favorite trees absolutely beautiful the the pods the seed pods are like light and fluffy and before we had styrofoam like styrofoam peanuts and such for shipping that's what people would use to pack goods so they didn't get damaged in shipping so when you go out and you see where there's railroad tracks or where there were railroad tracks which is far more common these days you'll see princess trees and uh you know

Starting point is 00:02:37 they are actually very pretty that's one's considered an invasive species oddly enough even though it's obviously not doing anyone any harm so i have no idea if uh tamarisk uh was planted intentionally or not but we've got uh one from the canary islands actually canary island tamarisk is a fairly common chinese tamarisk french tamarisk and tamarisk parvifola that's small flower flower, parviflora, I should say. It just means small flower. And tamarisk ramosissima, called salt cedar, oddly enough, because it's, well, you know, I can kind of see how it got that name, but it doesn't really matter.

Starting point is 00:03:22 Tamarisk was once really widely used in herbal medicine, and in the ancient world it was very popular. It continued well into the Middle Ages, and it's actually, the same family includes Myrica Gale, which was hugely popular before hops was introduced for bittering and preserving beer. hops was introduced for bittering and preserving beer it's slightly intoxicating and that's why it was discontinued but DS Cority's road tamarisk he called it Mirica as I said it's in the same family or Morris similar to myrrh as well he says a it's a well-known tree. It grows in marshy areas.

Starting point is 00:04:07 They were getting it from Greece from the gardens of Egypt at the time. So it's pretty old stuff. He said it is uniquely astringent to the taste and used instead of galls in medicine for the mouth. Now, galls are where a wasp will basically put a nest. What would you call it? They implant their eggs in an oak tree and it forms oak galls and they're incredibly astringent that's what people used to use for tanning leather

Starting point is 00:04:32 so this is similar to to that in terms of astringency so it was good for the eyes and the mouth and for spitting of blood it is given in a drink to women trouble with colic those who have a flowing forth so we're basically talking excessive menstrual cramping and bleeding etc it's it essentially or a sickness of the head and also good for those bitten by harvest spiders probably that astringency of the tissue bringing down the swelling. You know, harvest spiders have a necrotizing venom, so much like the black widow spider or the brown recluse or the wolf spider here in America. So maybe it just kind of helped localize that venom.

Starting point is 00:05:22 I'm not sure. Decoction of the leaves taken as a drink with wine uh he said was good for the spleen and gargoyle in the mouth helps a toothache for hip baths it is good for women troubled with discharge of fluids again we're talking well this could actually be like leucorrhea and and such as that and heated uh and as a heated rub it is good for those with lice and nits so it probably has some vermifuge properties uh an ash from the wood applies stops the flow from the uterus there are those who make cups from the wood and they use those for people troubled with their spleen and inflammation of the spleen uh they said that a drink given from cups carved out of tamarisk wood would do them

Starting point is 00:06:07 good. That's actually what he says, should do them good. I don't know, probably some anti-inflammatory properties, certainly bitter. He said it was tonic. It's interesting, you know, we don't use wooden cups a lot anymore. As a wood carver carver in fact i just like five minutes ago finished carving a birch spoon from some beautiful spalted birch i got blisters all over my hands it's hard work so these days we just usually buy cups but people used to have to carve their cups interestingly okay this is just an aside uh maybe some wood turners out there, you probably tried to turn a cup before. You know that a turned cup cut with the grain is prone to splitting. It will swell up and it will split because of the grain pattern.

Starting point is 00:06:59 A hand-carved cup is usually carved against the grain and it doesn't split as easily. It could be an issue if you put very hot beverages into it, but for the most part, that's what our ancestors used. They would often carry their own cup. The cup would double as a bowl for soups and broths, of course, and a wooden spoon, and that was what they ate with. Forks didn't come along. Oh gosh, forks really didn't become popular until about the 1800s in most places. People had a metal knife, if you know what's metal became common, and they had a wooden spoon and a wooden cup. And when you went to somebody's house, that's what you

Starting point is 00:07:38 took with you because they would have only made enough cups and spoons for their family. If you were going to get married, the first thing you did was carve a spoon for your betrothed, and that was a sign that said, you know, I'm ready to settle down and get married, and we're going to have a family. Here's one spoon for you, and you know, I'm going to carve another one for our first kid. It's a beautiful tradition. I really like it. If you want to look into that, the Welsh especially made very ornate marriage spoons and such. The Norse, the Swedes, and the Scandinavians, they were also very big in carving cups and spoons. But every bite, that's what they used, you know. um really uh metal cutlery and you know china glass that stuff really wasn't all that common until uh the past two three hundred years um they called it uh whiteware you if you had a

Starting point is 00:08:38 you would go into town there'd be a blacksmith and he'd make stuff out of metal and there'd be a um i don't know what the guy was called at one point i think a bodger but a bodger was specifically a chair maker um but they would make whiteware is what they called it and it just meant uh utensils plates uh chargers bowls cups forks and spoons made out of wood and it it is a beautiful tradition. I enjoy it quite a bit. If you want to see some of my work, just go to Judson Carroll Woodcraft. It's a sub stack.

Starting point is 00:09:12 So it's judsoncarrollwoodcraft.substack.com or something like that. But, you know, Google will take you there. There's also a link in the show notes. I don't have much of anything for sale on the site right now because Christmas just passed and I had so many orders. I literally could not fill all my Christmas orders and a lot of people said, hey, don't worry about it. This is something I'm just getting for myself, so push

Starting point is 00:09:40 mine back and I'll take it after New Year's's. So I was finally able to complete all my orders actually just today. I literally just delivered the last order. A fellow ordered two sets of wild cherry, what I call a picnic set. It's a spoon, a long-handled teaspoon, a pickle fork, and a butter knife. Beautiful wild cherry. They turned out fantastically. He had bought a set of wild holly from me about a year ago, and he said, could you make me a big barbecue fork and a big knife?

Starting point is 00:10:17 And see, holly is hard. It's very fine-grained, and it also is a little bit flexible. So you can literally carve a knife out of american holly and use it just as you would a metal knife for most applications i mean yeah you could probably serrate it and cut steak with it i mean it's literally that hard it's wonderful stuff uh so i just delivered those to uh to him today so yeah I'm pretty exhausted actually I have been well to do the holly I had to cut a tree you know and then cut it up and then start carving his pieces I already had the the cherry cut into logs and I was able to carve that but yeah my hands are

Starting point is 00:11:03 shot right now so you know I had plans of starting some mandolin videos actually last week. And my hands are just a wreck. So if you're looking for my mandolin videos that I promised to teach you how to learn to play mandolin, I have been writing out the lessons. I have not been able to do the videos yet. If you saw my hands right now, you'd probably be a little shocked. My knuckles are all busted. Well, I've got one small cut.

Starting point is 00:11:31 I actually didn't cut myself too badly this time. But big bloody blisters just like everywhere. It's a good thing I enjoy it. And I really do enjoy carving wood. Because to put yourself through that much exertion and pain for something you don't enjoy would not be fun at all. Just something about it. I like working with wood. My grandfather was a carpenter. His father had a sawmill and built houses and he was a carpenter. I think his father's father was. I mean, you know, it goes back a long way for us, and it just feels right for me to have a gouge or a knife in my hand. I love it. I really do.

Starting point is 00:12:11 So, you know, maybe I'll carve some cups out of tamarisk. That would be really nice. I have a lot of white oak and tulip poplar down from the hurricane in my yard, and a white pine. poplar down from the hurricane in my yard and a white pine. White pine not good for cups at all far too soft wood but many other things can be made from it including baskets believe it or not you can make some beautiful baskets out of the the inner bark of the white pine you can do that with the tulip poplar as well but there is a lot of herbal lore and information about the medicinal uses of cups made from different woods and you think about it you know when we're working in herbal medicine we usually use the bark

Starting point is 00:12:56 sometimes we may use pine needles we may use something like that catkins from poplar and such but the wood itself actually does have medicinal properties. There's actually been a lot written over hundreds of years, if not much further, of making certain walking sticks out of certain woods, and it sounds like, well, that's crazy, right? I mean, a walking stick, a cane's a cane. Well, not really. I I mean what if that wood has an anti-inflammatory property you know what if it has a property increases circulation or you know heating or cooling I mean a lot of these medicinal uses as you use it and your hands are sweating and you're absorbing whatever chemical components I guess I would say are in

Starting point is 00:13:45 that wood you could absorb them through the skin so there are actually woods you can use to make a hiking stick you know I you know what I ought to write a book about that but I don't know if I'll get the the chance I'm writing three at one time right now, with about ten more in the backlog to do. But as soon as I can get settled back in my house and get the repairs done, maybe I can start carving some cups and bowls and maybe some hiking sticks or canes that would actually have somewhat of a medicinal property. Worth a shot, anyway. This is the way I come up with ideas.

Starting point is 00:14:32 People ask me, how do you come up with ideas for all the things you do? Well, a lot of times I'll just be sitting here doing a podcast. I'm like, hey, you know, that would be a good idea. But anyway, Gerard, the English herbalist of the 1500s wrote of German tamarisk he said tamarisk hath a cleansing and cutting faculty with a manifest drying again it just means astringent it also somewhat is astringent or binding and by by reason of these qualities, it is very good for a hard spleen being this, this inflamed spleen. So that astringent quality is helping to pull inflammation out of the spleen. It's funny. I mean, I had to take like anatomy classes in college and such

Starting point is 00:15:19 as that. And I could not find my spleen. If someone asked me. I have no idea even how to diagnose a hard spleen, but, you know, if you do, maybe you want to look at a tamarisk. But he said it should be boiled with vinegar or wine using either the root or leaves, twigs or branches. And he said, as Galen writeth. Galen was another old Greek. Come to think of it, Galen may have been Roman, but he was a great doctor, a surgeon, actually. He was basically an army surgeon. He said, Moreover, Dioscorides teacheth

Starting point is 00:16:00 that the decoction of the leaf made with wine doth waste or shrink the spleen. That's not a bad thing, and that the same is good against toothache if the mouth be washed therewith, that it bringeth down the menses if the patient sit therein, and killeth the lice and nits if the parts be bathed therewith. The ashes of burnt tamarisk have a drying faculty, and scouring withal are a literal binding. Scouring generally means washing, a little binding.

Starting point is 00:16:35 I guess he just again is talking about the stringent property. Usually when they say binding, they're talking about, you know, stopping diarrhea, but I don't think that washing with it would help. about you know stopping diarrhea but I don't think that would washing with it would help the flowers and downy seeds of the greatest greater tamarisk doth greatly bind as it cometh very near to the gall okay we talked about galls before and it has a roughness of taste that is evident in the gall so very bitter and the flowers have a great cleansing faculty which the gall, so very bitter, and the flowers have a great cleansing faculty, which the gall hath not, and the flowers we fitly use instead of gall as a medicine for the eyes and mouth. It is good to staunch the blood and stay the women's lasks and women's whites. It helpeth

Starting point is 00:17:18 the yellow jaundice, so it apparently has an anti-inflammatory property on the liver as well. And cure those that are bit by the venomous spider. Again, he's talking the harvest spider. So interesting. The bark serves for the same purpose. The leaves and wood of tamarisk have a great virtue against the hardness and stopping of the spleen, especially the leaves boiled in water and decoction drunk or else infused in a small vessel of ale or beer and continually drunk and if it be drunk forth of a cup or dish made of the

Starting point is 00:17:53 wood of timber or timber of tamarisk it is a great of greater efficacy that's hard to say it is of greater efficacy so he was saying if you had an issue, especially with your spleen, that drinking ale or beer from a cup made from tamarisk wood would be very helpful. Yeah, I ought to look into carving a few of those. Culpepper wrote, The root leaves young branches of bark boiled in wine and drank, stays the bleeding of hemorrhoidal veins. Yeah, presumably he's just talking hemorrhoids.

Starting point is 00:18:36 But when he says hemorrhoidal veins, that means it would also help with varicose veins. Because essentially, hemorrhoids and varicose veins are the same thing just in two different parts of the body basically you know if you're on your feet all the time your blood pressure is essentially pushing that blood down into the veins of your feet and legs and eventually the the veins get boggy as it's's called. They stretch out, they lose their elasticity, and that's a varicose vein. With hemorrhoids, it's the pressure put against those veins that causes the same thing.

Starting point is 00:19:14 So we generally treat hemorrhoids and varicose veins the exact same way, and you're looking for, again, an astringent. He said it's good for the splitting of blood. The two abounding of women's courses, so it helps with excessive menstrual bleeding, the jaundice, the colic, and the biting of venomous serpents, except the asp. So thank God we don't have asps in the mountains of North Carolina. We actually don't have any venomous snakes whatsoever. So when I go down the mountain, about a thousand feet, I'll run into rattlesnakes and copperheads and all that but where I live we

Starting point is 00:19:48 actually have no venomous snakes so it's one thing I don't have to worry about do you have to worry about brown recluse spiders though and very similar in their what they call necrotizing or tissue destroying venom. Those are nasty things. It is very powerful against the hardness of the spleens and the toothache and pains in the ears, the red and watering eyes. The decoction with some honey put thereto is good to stay gangrenes and fretting ulcers. So that's interesting. Of course, gangrene and infected ulcers of the skin are incredibly serious.

Starting point is 00:20:26 So that astringency must also be, well, they said it had a cleansing property. So we can probably assume it has an antiseptic property. And hopefully that's been looked into more recently than 1600s when he was writing this. And of course, honey does have antibiotic properties so it could be the honey in that combination that's doing it. Said it was good to wash those that are subject to nits and lice. The Egyptians do with good success use the wood to cure the French disease. What is the French disease? Have a little trouble finding this one. It's probably syphilis.

Starting point is 00:21:05 Could be gonorrhea. Not sure. But the English called all venereal diseases French diseases. And if you know anything about the dislike of the French by the English, you can probably figure out why. It says it can be used in place of lingam vitae. Also given to those who have leprosy, scabs, ulcers, and the like. Its ashes doth quickly heal blisters raised by burnings or scaldings. That's good to know. It helps the dropsy arising from the hardness of the spleen, and therefore to drink out of cups

Starting point is 00:21:39 made from the wood is good for splenetic persons people with inflamed spleens it's also helpful for melancholy and black jaundice that arise thereof i don't even know what that means the ancients believe that swine fed from a trough made of this wood would have no milk so apparently it's had a syringe it could actually dry up milk interesting and he said that the bark is used for rickets and children so uh must have some vitamins in it and finally an irish herbal states the wood bark and leaves are good for all disorders of the spleen drinking decoction opens obstructions and it's good for cough and cataract so also good for uh removing congestion from the lungs. So very, very useful tree.

Starting point is 00:22:28 And yeah, got us into some interesting topics. I think I'll wrap it up there. Yeah, might as well. Well, you know what? I'll give you one more. It's short. Texodium. Only one texodium has stayed in my region,

Starting point is 00:22:44 and it's pond cypress. but there's also bald cypress which has been introduced all I know about this is plants for future says the resin and the cones is used as an analgesic for wounds so not a real common plant where I live more so down in the swamps where I grew up well I grew up half of the mountains and half of the swamps about an hour from the coast and cypress was yeah fairly common I had no idea the bald cypress was introduced that region is kind of known for its cypress but yeah pond cypress is very common so a much bigger entry on the next one

Starting point is 00:23:27 uh i'll save it for next week it's going to be basswood or lime tilia uh wonderful wonderful tree so useful in herbal medicine so look forward to that one y'all have a great week and i'll talk to you next time the information 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.

Starting point is 00:24:01 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 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 00:24:44 make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever

The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Sweet Leaf, Tamarisk and Cypress

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