Trees Trivia

From the other post, thought it might be fun to post what folks know and swap a few stories. Here a few I know and maybe somebody else has some to add to the list.

Liquidambar styraciflua Sweet Gum.... Cut the twigs, skin them and rub gums to use for breath and pick crud out of teeth.

Catalpa bignonioides Southern Catalpa.... Hosts for some fantastic fishing worms.

Maclura pomifera Osge Orange Indians used to make bows and arrows from

Diospyros virginiana Common Persimmon ... has edible fruit but needs frost on fruit before edible

Sapium sebiferum Chinese Tallow tree... You can make candles out of the fruit. Takes thousands of the seeds to even make one tiny candle. Costs more to heat the water to remove the wax than it worth I found out.

Ulmus rubra Slippery Elm. got a bad tummy ache and stuck in the woods. Boiled used as a medicinal solution for stomach ailments.

Tilia americana American Linden tree. besides being great for bees, you can make and repair wood fishign lures.

Persea borbonia Red Bay.. if you look around you will start seeing that alot of fancy restraunt chiefs have their own tree growing right outside the door.

Ilex vomitoria. Think part of the name came from the fact that the Indians used to boil the leaves to get relief from " thundering stomachs"

Sassafras occidentalis. For tea and think it also has something to do with whiskey in Kentucky with a some Nascar folks.

Melia azedarach China Berry,,, In Africa they take the fruit, soak with rain water for belive it stomach worms. A major medicinal plant for third world countries

Nyssa Ogeche Ocgeechee Tupelo. fruit makes Jam and Jellies

Gleditis tricanthus inermis. Thornless Honey Locust Honey sacks from the pods.

Quercus imbricaria Shingle Oak. Used to make shingles for homes

Oaks. those in the Lepidobalanus subgenus are sweet to eat.

Greetings. For starters, I'd like to know if Sassafrass occidentalis is the same as S. albidum? If so, one should not make tea with this known carcinogen.

We always used Alder (Alnus incana most likely) for cooking things over a fire, it has no taste at all.
Spruce yeilds an edible gum, if you like the taste.
Don't use White Spruce (P. glauca) for a Christmas tree, it will smell like cat pee when brought into the heat.
The largest source of honey here in the Mid-Atlantic is L. tulipifera, a secondary source with fragile flowers is Robinia pseudoacacia. Tilia makes my bees drunk and prone to predation. No honey flow is associated with that tree here.
White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) has an inner bark that is easily detatched for making temporary ropes. These trees are also the best places to bed down at night. The leaf litter under them makes a soft cusion and the branches that go to the ground provide shelter from the wind. Be aware that moose have known this for as long as we have and will yard up in cedar clumps in the winter.

PN Pete, Re.White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) AKA arborvitae "tree of life" named for its remarkable curative powers on the dreaded scurvy a common disease of early sailors. Until they discovered citrus fruits, which taste much better, it was a good source for vitamin C.

Nice thread! I only know, from VV, that Viburnum dentatum (Arrowwood) was used to make arrows (maybe still is?).

I am still hoping to get sort of close to a moose, Penn_Pete. I will have to see if White Cedar grows in Idaho. If it does, next time I visit my sister and she drags me up and down the mountainsides, I'm going to tell her we at least have to find some White Cedars to hike toward.

Tilia cordata and americana (and probably T. species in general) - flowers also make good tea. It was a staple where my relatives live in Slovenia.

A juice can be made from the bristles on the "berries" of Rhus typhina (Staghorn sumac). (Call it Rhus juice, if you will.) Tastes a lot like Kool-aid. Works with Smooth sumac too, but not as potent since the bristles are short.

Pinus banksiana (Jack pine) - Remove the excess resin from the male flower clusters by parboiling. Makes them edible.

Jack pine was considered an evil tree in olden days.

Additional note on Liquidambar styraciflua Sweet Gum: known to induce nightmares and other mental dysfunctions in veterinarians inhabiting western portions of the 15th state.

Sorry to be the sad note on the party but...

"Maclura pomifera Osge Orange Indians used to make bows and arrows from"

Is not really true.. it was what was thought by the anglo settlers but not what used... many trees are/where used just not this one...

It's very interesting that you mention that MitchF. I've always heard about the Bois D'arc tree(Maclura pomifera) being called that because of early French explorers/traders observing American Indians making bows out of the wood. Also, many references repeat the line about Indians making bows out of it.

J.D. Burton of the USDA Forest Service writes, "The branch wood was used by the Osage Indians for making bows and is still recommended by some archers today."

C.S. Sargent writes in "Manual of the Trees of North America", "...used...formerly by the Osage and other Indians west of the Mississippi River for bows and war-clubs."

There's many other references to this as well.

Heck, there's even a website about making bows from Osage Orange tree wood at http://www.osageorange.com/ (also some photos there that might make gardeners with hoofed challenged gardens happy)

But, maybe you know something new? Perhaps all of this started out with the same untruth long ago and has been simply repeated by mutliple authors, etc. It's certainly possible, alot of things get entrenched into the collective knowledge base that way.

Resin.... Sure they're not Laurus nobilis? That's the supplier of the classic bay leaf used in stews, etc.

Not sure. Never heard of the Laurus nobilis before. Was just taught about the Persea. Think I definately need to find out though, because I planning on ordering a bunch of Red Bay seed and if they not the cooking trees I need to change my seed order list.

This is pretty cool.

I know one of the Oaks makes baseball bats, but not sure which one it is off hand. Think it is the Black Oak , but could be wrong.

Hi Starlight,

Here's a couple of refs:
http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Laurus+nobilis
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Laur_nob.html

Resin

Nice note on the Liquidamber VV, I think I also have those symptoms. Is it catchin?

I thought they made baseball bats out of mostly White Ash (Fraxinus americana) ?

A few more.

Araucaria araucana - discovered in a salad by Archibald Menzies, naturalist on Captain George Vancouver's ship, while dining with the governor of Chile. He pocketed a few and grew them on the ship and introduced in 1795. The cells are the longest of any tree at 1 foot and were used for propellers as the wood had good flexibility. I ate a few seed on my harvest this year and it tastes like water chestnut. They are sold in supermarkets in Chile.

Arbutus menziesii - resents being climbed and as kids noticed large branches die after dangling from them. The red berries are often used for making Christmas garland by stringing them with popcorn.

Pseudotsuga menziesii - I believe a First Nations "tale" where the squirrels were so scarred they ran into the Douglas Fir to hide. They were so scared they hid in the cones and those are "tails" you see sticking out of the cones (seed). You can eat the fresh grown tips.

Eucalyptus - cut down one and you'll have clear nasal passages (personal experience).

Cupressus macrocarpa (Monterey Cypress) - I have a 'Goldcrest' cv on my porch and I amuse visitors with it's lemon scent when brushed. I also have a Melianthus major (Peanut Butter Shrub) which takes people a moment to figure out what it smells like. It's completely poisonous but I'm still looking for a Jam plant to go with it.

I just noticed Archibald Menzies is responsible for discovering 3 of the above. How cool. :-)

This message was edited Dec 15, 2006 1:57 PM

kman is correct about baseball bats. White Ash is still use for the majority of bats with sugar maple gaining ground in 2nd place.

Laurus nobilis. If you eat enough you can have the same fortune telling abilities and hallucinations as the oracle at Delphi.

Willis the Greek

K-blue..

It is ture and coomon held but the bows we have from before the westward spread of the USA tend to be yew, Osage Orange being a hard tree to cut with they tools they had at that point. It is only after the tribes started to move into the Red River area that they began to use the tree (after saws and blades came into use in the area). It was not untill the times of T. Jefferson that the tree became known to the anglo world... soon after word they would start to use the wood for this reason. Even then not all tribes just the ones along the Red River from most accounts...

Resin... Seems there is one type of Bay for the west and Persea is common for the Southeast, but it gets galls, which I have seen cover the tree and is not very appetizing. Laurel nobilis is the true Bay and very aromatic. I have spent 5 hours huntign every which way I can find to hunt for the Laurel seeds to no avail. If somebody know s of a souce , would appreciate it.

Learned to identify the Ash by the big bat or little bat seed, but didn't realize they made bats out of it. Thought only sugar maple came from that tree . Learning lots of new stuff.

Gonna have to try some Tilia flower tea next year when it blooms. I make tea for folsk all the time, but am allergic to it. Maybe the Tilia will be somethign I can enjoy.

Here one for ya all. What tree is Superman allergic too?

There is another "Bay Laurel" Umbellularia californica or California Bay Laurel which in my opinion seems to be hardier here. It's also called the Headache Tree as the aroma is stronger and can cause a headache. It can be used the same way regular Bay Laurel is used in cooking.

Pick the Tilia flowers when they first open and some will probably still be in bud. Dry them first. At least that is what they did in Slovenia.

That's interesting info MitchF. I wonder if most all Eastern Indians used Yew before they switched to Osage Orange, since Yew is native mostly to the NE and upper Midwest parts of the Eastern USA(also most of Eastern Canada). Maybe other Indians traded for the bows or wood? I also wonder what Indians of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains used for bows.

Native Americans never used yew wood for bows at all. As well as osage-orange, they also used hickory and other hardwoods. The only native yews in eastern North America are Taxus floridana and T. canadensis; both are shrubs never large enough to make bows from - you need at least 2 metres of clear, knot-free log to cut bowstaves from. Use of yew wood for bow-making is a European tradition (from Taxus baccata, which gets much larger).

Lots of info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatbow

Resin

According to the book, "Plants of Coastal British Columbia including Washington, Oregon & Alaska" by Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon, Taxus brevifolia was used for bows.

"Yew was named 'bow plant' by Haida, Halq'emeylem and Stl'atl'imx, and 'wedge plant' in Sechelt, Squamish, and Nuu-chah-nulth. Many implements were made from yew wood, including bows, wedges, clubs, paddles, digging sticks, adze handles, harpoon shafts, spears, mat-sewing needles, awls, dip-net frames, knives, dishes, spoons, boxes, dowels and pegs, drum frames, snowshoe frames, canoe-spreaders, bark scrapers, fire tongs and combs. The Saanich used the entire trunk of a sapling to catapult spears in warfare, and they molded their yew bows to the proper curvature by first steaming them inside a bull kelp stalk."

This evergreen grows to 15m with thick branches in habitat. This species was an important part of coastal First Nations life.

Resin, I am just going from Masters classes and a summer working in several digs. The Osage Orange bows are never ever found in anything pre anglo trading era. We did find Yew among many others. There was a lot of tradeamong all tribes on the whole, we can find pots and bones all along the trades routes. Monkey and Macaw bones and drawings are not all that uncommon in the areas that traded with the Aztec and Maya empires for example.

White ash is not only used for baseball bats. I am told that axe handles made from white ash will last a lifetime.

Shortly after her first mariage, my great-grandmother had my GGF use his wood lathe to turn a white ash rolling pin for her. GGF was a cabinet maker. He did a superb job and the rolling pin remains in use today. That was almost 100 years ago. The 5-inch handles and the 14-inch rolling surface were turned in one piece. Over the years, I have purchased, tried and gave away rolling pins made of marble, granite, aluminium, plastic, even those awkward long wooden dowels the Nefarious Martha enjoys using because noone else uses them. None can hold a candle to my white ash rolling pin.

Sylvain.

Hi Growin - I was thinking in terms of the eastern/central US. True that the west coast people did have access to larger yews suitable for bows.

Hi MitchF - could they have imported Taxus globosa (from Mexico, north to Nuevo León) or T. brevifolia (Pacific coast)?

Resin

That Resin is one of the questions we had been looking at ... we always are looking of the use of plants and their spread and use, I will email my friends and see if that could have been a route or if they think there might have been other trade routes and how they worked with each other. There is a lot of talk in the American Indian circles to what wood we should be using to do a lot of things to keep true, the more we look the more we know how little is known...

Hi MitchF - Just a thought: most of the yew staves used to make Welsh and English longbows in the 13th-14th centuries was imported from Spain. About the same distance as Nuevo León to Texas. The British importers didn't have a desert to cross, but did have to cross the Bay of Biscay.

Resin

True, It makes it very hard to trace when and where some pieces came from. It does not hurt that the most of older wood pieces have been left on hunting trips or such so there are very few examples to work from. I am sure that they could more then have crossed that trip - we know they did trade with all the way to Central America from time to time...

In Ohio, archaeologists have found lots of things that must have been traded, or at least transported, from hundreds and hundreds of miles away... copper, obsidian, mica, and iron ore. It's reasonable to presume wood products were traded, too.

It would be better to take wood over rocks... easy on the treck too right?

And, you know, I can't find any decent obsidian around here anymore! It's hard to find a good trader these days.

Scott

Very nice ones in the new Mexico areas...

- I use more feathers then stones myself.

You all make me smile sometimes. : )

Here ya go... What tree won't Superman climb?

" Crypto" meria . LOL

(Ducks as the acorns come flying at me) : )

Acorns won't do, for a groaner like that.

How about some of those hedge apple fruit? Especially from Maclura pomifera 'Cannonball'...

Taxus baccata or Pacific Yew could have been used by the "Indians" with wooden homes where Lewis and Clark spent a winter. I agree that the Canadian/Canadien Yew is useless. Most conifers in the age of dinosaurs were prostrate and less likely munched.

ROTFLMAO!
E-guy, growing up in AL, as we did, you and I appreciate the undesirable nature of L.styraciflua, whereas these poor souls look upon them as a thing of beauty, and not something to be reviled.
Yes, I'm from Alabama, and no, these shoes don't hurt my feet! Vociferous Viagra should walk a mile in bare feet through a south AL forest - or just along the lakeshore at lovely Lake Martin; he'd be yodeling a different tune.

Scott,
Here are some potential sources for obsidian - or at least some good, workable chert:
Primitive Technology homepage:
http://www.flight-toys.com/primitive.html
Knappers Anonymous:
http://www.geocities.com/knappersanonymous/

VV.. No need to bring out them giant green baseballs. They would just knock out what few brain cells I have left.

I tell ya there gotta be a good purpose for them things other than playing baseball. Don't know what it is yet, but gonna figure something.

Starlight, it's a tough crowd here. Puns are my favorite jokes (the clean ones). I LOLed.

Besides, what do they know? It could be true.

---Leftwood, who knows that no one will come this far north just to pummel me.

Some other uses for Osage Orange: (By personal observation.) The fruits reportedly can be used to deter insects, but they do get sticky and smelly so not good to use as a sachet amongst your linens. In old Alabama (where they are not indigeneous) the trees were used as hedge rows, and strung with hog wire. In Greensboro, Al. they were imported as whips from a nursery in Ohio. They are therefore often the markers of old property lines.
Of the fruits. Some are bumpy and some are not. The bumpy ones appear later in the season, and are fertile, so the seeds can be planted to grow new trees. If the prunings are left where tires may tread, likely those tires will go flat from the thorns. Finally, from age the trees do not die, but simply fall over and continue to grow horizontally along the ground, becoming entwined and thorny.
Oh. yes. If you try to use a chain saw on Osage Orange, you will likely encounter antique square nails from the days when hogs roamed the country sides.

Oh. yes. another trivial thing about Osage Orange. It is not native to the southeast, I am not sure where the line is of its native habitat. The trees (seeds?) were brought east by the Lewis and Clark expedition and propagated by Philadelphia nurseryman Barnard McMahon. This may be why you don't find it in some Indian sites. Around here it is called "bodock" from bois d'arc. The trees became ubiquitous only after their use as fence rows in the late 1830s.