The Native Trees

DISCLAIMER: THIS PAGE IS NOT A PRESCRIPTOR.  IT IS SIMPLY A LIST OF NATIVE PLANTS ALONG WITH THEIR HISTORICAL USES.  USE THIS LIST TO IDENTIFY THE PLANTS ACCURATELY AS SIMILAR LOOKING PLANTS MAY BE DANGEROUS.

Wild Black Cherry (Prunas serotina)
Edible Uses: A "poor man's cherry substitute," this bittersweet juice is added to raw liquors to smooth and stretch the liquids.  The rich juice is favored for cooking.  Also, dark jellies, jams and sauces are made from the berry.
Medicinal Uses: The fruit brewed into a tea or syrup is taken for coughs, fevers, cold, sore throats, diarrhea, lung ailments, bronchitis, pneumonia and inflammations.  The fruit tea is also taken as a sedative, an expectorant and a blood tonic.

Black Locust (Robinia pseudo-acacia)

Warning! All parts of this plant (roots, bark, leaves and seeds) are poisonous.

Medicinal uses: The root bark has been chewed to induce vomiting or held in the mouth for a toothache.  Historically, a flower tea was used as a folk tonic (purgative).

Black Walnut (Juglans nigra)
Edible Uses: Sweet oil is extracted from crushed nut meats to make nut butter or nut oil.  Whole or crushed nuts are added to cakes, candies, salads and made into syrups.  The spring sap of the trees can be used the same as maple tree sap.
Medicinal Uses: Inner bark tea is used as an emetic (induce vomiting) or as a laxative.   The inner bark is chewed for a toothache or colic.  Fresh husk juice is applied to ringworm or as a poultice for inflammation.  Leaf teas are used as an astringent and as an insecticide against bed bugs.

Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis)
Edible Uses: The fruit ripens in September and October.  Eating the dried fruit of the hackberry takes the edge off of winter hunger.  The dried fruit and the white kernels (cracked from the shells) have a sweet date-like flavor.  Pounded dried pits add flavor to venison.

Hickory (Carya sp.)

Edible Uses: Water added to the dried powder pounded from shells and kernels makes a milky, oily liquid to add to vegetables and desserts.

Medicinal uses: The inner bark makes a purgative or a laxative.  Externally, a poultice of the inner bark is applied to blisters.

Paw Paw (Asiminia triloba)
Warning!  Seeds are toxic!
Edible Uses: This sweet fruit is favored by wildlife.  After a heavy frost, the ripened fruit is gathered and eaten raw or cooked into a dessert.
Medicinal Uses: The fruit is used as a laxative and a diuretic.  A poultice of the leaves may be applied to abscesses.  Powdered seeds are applied to the head as an insecticidal for lice.

Red Oak (Quercus rubra)
Warning!  Contains tannic acid that is toxic!
Edible Uses: Tannin is leached from the nuts with several water baths.  Nuts may then be roasted or ground as a course meal for cakes or to mix with cornmeal, added to soups for seasoning or made into coffee.  A nut milk or nut oil is obtained by pounding and boiling the nuts.  This oil or milk may then be used to season vegetables.
Medicinal Uses: Historically, tea of the inner bark was used for chronic diarrhea, dysentery, as a gargle for sore throats, and a skin wash for poison ivy rash and burns.  Inner bark tea was considered a folk remedy for cancer.

Red Mulberry (Morus rubra)
Edible Uses: The fresh fruit is cooked into jams and jellies or eaten raw.  Warm and cold drinks are made from the juice of the fruit.  Young tender twigs may be eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable along with the very young unfolded leaves.
Medicinal Uses: Root teas drank are for weakness, difficult urination and dysentery.  Externally, the sap us applied to ringworm.

Red Bud (Cercis canadensis)
Warning! Contains tannin - potentially toxic in large amounts!
Edible Uses: Flower buds are added to salads, while young pods are sautéed as vegetables.  The seed oil has a peanut flavor and is used as a seasoning.
Medicinal Uses: Inner bark tea is highly astringent and may be used as a sore throat gargle.  Tea made from the bark is a folk remedy for stomachaches, heart burn, diarrhea and dysentery.  Tea may also be used as a wash or poultice for warts and cancers.

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)
Edible Uses: Tea is made from young roots.  Roots are also used as a spice.  The green winter buds are edible, as are the very young spring leaves.  Dried leaves with the hard parts and veins removed are used to flavor and thicken soups.  Dried bark is ground to sweeten and thicken stews.
Medicinal Uses: Young sprouts boiled make an eye wash.  Aromatic dried root is smoked like tobacco.  Tea of the root bark is used as a "blood purifier," for stomachaches, gout, arthritis, rheumatism, kidney ailments, colds, fevers and skin eruptions.  A poultice made of the pith of twigs is a treatment for eye ailments.

Slippery Elm (Ulmus rubra)
Edible Uses: The inner bark is brewed for a healthful tea.  A nutritious flour is made from the dried and ground inner bark.
Medicinal Uses: Tea of the inner bark is taken for sore throats, upset stomachs, ulcers, coughs, pleurisy, diarrhea, dysentery or added to broths for children and the elderly.

Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum)
Edible Uses: The seeds when hulled and boiled are edible.  In the spring, these trees are tapped for their sap, which is boiled into syrup and sugar.
Medicinal Uses: Pure sap may be drank as a spring tonic.  Spring sap syrup is also taken as a liver tonic, a kidney cleanser and a cough syrup.  Teas of the inner bark are drank for a cough or diarrhea and were thought to be useful as a diuretic, an expectorant and a "blood purifier."

References

Bennett, James P. and Jennifer E. J. Course.  1996.  The Vascular Flora of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Ross County, Ohio.  Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Institute for Environmental Studies.

Erichson, Charlotte Brown.  1979.  Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants.  New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Foster, Steven and James A. Duke.  1990.  A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants: Eastern and Central North America.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Peterson, Lee Allen.  1977.  A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North America.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.