The Healing Trees

By Robbie Anderman

By moving off-grid to a farm in the Wilno Hills of Eastern Ontario, Robbie Anderman left behind his former way of life, his allergy shots and pills, and the social supports that he was used to. He quickly discovered that he needed to learn how to live on the land that had become his home.

Running down to the drugstore or h

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burnstown Publishing House
• Release date: Aug 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781772571547

Book preview

THE

HEALING

TREES

The Edible and Herbal Qualities of

Northeastern Woodland Trees

ROBBIE HANNA ANDERMAN

5 Leckie Lane

Burnstown, Ontario K0J 1G0

www.burnstownpublishing.com

Copyright © 2017

Robbie Anderman

THE HEALING TREES

The Edible and Herbal Qualities

of Northeastern Woodland Trees

ISBN: 978-1-77257-153-0 (PB)

ISBN: 978-1-77257-154-7 (eBook)

All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in a critical review and certain other noncommercial

uses permitted by copyright law no part of this publication may be

reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or

other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written

permission of the publisher or author, or, in the case of photocopying

or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright

(Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), www.accesscopyright.ca.

One Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5.

Cataloguing data available at

Library and Archives Canada, Cataloguing in Publication (CIP).

Editor: J. Karchmar

Cover Design: Beth Kennedy

Cover painting by: Kathy M. Haycock

Illustrations: Hilkka

Author’s portrait: Janet Nelson

Interior Layout: W.D. Clements

Published and Printed in Canada.

THE

HEALING

TREES

The Edible and Herbal Qualities of

Northeastern Woodland Trees

ROBBIE HANNA ANDERMAN

Illustrated by Hilkka

Map of the Northeastern Woodlands

(Courtesy of David Publicover, Appalachian Mountain Club.)

I dedicate this book to the

Trees who gave their Lives and Bones that this book

might be printed and researched; who have kept their

vibrant qualities and medicines alive and available even

when humans mostly ignored their presence;

and who also give us oxygen to breathe, food to eat,

medicine for healing, wood for heat and shelter,

and friendship in our lives on Earth.

May this book prove worthy of your gifts,

sacrifice, and presence.

Contents

Foreword

PREFACE: The Roots of the Book

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The Flowers

INTRODUCTION: Within the Leaves of the Book

CHAPTER ONE: The Tall Standing Rooted Ones

CHAPTER TWO: Cautions amid the Trees

CHAPTER THREE: The Main Tree Trunk—the Trees

Alder

Apple

Ash

Balsam Fir

Balsam Poplar

Basswood

Beech

Birch

White Birch/Paper Birch

Yellow Birch

Black Birch

Cedar, Eastern White

Wild Black Cherry

Chokecherries

Pin Cherry

Hawthorn

Hemlock, Eastern

Ironwood

Maple

Hard Maples

Soft Maples

Small Maples

Oak

White Oak

Red Oak

Pine

White Pine

Red Pine

Poplar

Spruce

White Spruce

Black Spruce

Red Spruce

Norway Spruce

Tamarack

Wild Plum

Willow

Pussy Willow

Shining Willow

White Willow

CHAPTER FOUR: Some Side Branches

Some Personal Experiences

Trees and Vitamin C

Herbalism and Herbal Methods — Philosophy and Practicalities

Harvesting and Storing Tree Parts

Forestry First Aid

Edibles from Trees by the Season

Wood Ashes

Relevant Notes and Quotes

Guide to Tree Uses and Properties

Bibliography

Glossary

About the Author

Tree medicine is what the Earth is offering us in the seasons

when there is no herbaceous growth.

Steven Martyn

Foreword

ROBBIE ANDERMAN—OR BEAVER , as he’s known locally—has been my friend and fruit Tree guru for over twenty years. He is the quintessential back-to-the-land hippie. And I don’t mean the tiedye, two-dimensional TV version. I mean someone who became hip to what was going on in the late 1960s and has embodied that consciousness and worked toward social change and raising environmental awareness ever since.

Robbie not only schooled me in how to graft fruit trees and care for an orchard; he’s such a good researcher that when I made my own mixed orchard, I surrendered to his proven abilities and wisdom and looked nowhere else but to him and his son Ethan for my scions. So, I have raised and cared for his thirty-year-old orchard’s fifteen-year-old children, as it were. And I suppose that makes us kin of a sort. We share a great love for all plants and Trees, but we both have a particular predilection for pears, which in our climate borders on extravagance. But I believe the ecstasy of the orchard in spring blossom, and the sweet weight of their golden fruit in fall, is worth the risk of life itself to both of us.

In The Healing Trees, Robbie has given us the tools to claim back something essential that we lost long ago: a home. This book is the ABCs of Trees and, as such, should be in every schoolroom, household, and library of northeastern America, until the facts herein come to be known by heart. Long ago, in rural schools, they actually did teach some of these things, like how to identify Trees, as well as their historic and industrial uses. The fact that we don’t teach or know these things is to me a glaring act of negligence that betrays a deep prejudice toward nature.

These old ones who surround us wherever we go, in temperate or tropical climates, give us the very air we breathe. They have also given us heat to cook with and the ability to live in climates we weren’t built for (like the northern hemisphere). And, as if that wouldn’t be enough to warrant our eternal thankfulness, they have made our shelter, our furniture, and our utensils; as instruments have entertained us; and clothed us with their fibre and dyes. And long before the first monument builders came and carved their fields from the rich forests, they also fed and healed us for at least a hundred millennia. Trees have watched over and taken care of us throughout our human existence.

So I implore you to bow to these Old Tall Ones who gave us life and use this book as a tool to find your way back to being responseable for the health of the planet and our loved ones.

We would do well to emulate the approach Robbie has taken to the Trees. While his writing contains scientific perspectives and many medicinal facts, this book is also down-to-earth and respectful—even reverential—toward its subject, the Trees.

Steven Elliot Martyn

Herbalist

TheSacredGardener.ca

PREFACE:

The Roots of the Book

IN EARLY SPRING 1969, with thigh-deep snow still insulating the ground, I immigrated with friends to an off-grid farm in the Wilno Hills, east of Algonquin Park, in unceded Algonquin Territory. I quickly found myself carrying water in buckets from a hand-dug well and splitting firewood to keep warm. Coming from a small city, I soon realized I had to learn a whole new way of living.

Once the snow melted, I found that the land was similar in both geology and flora to that of southern New York State, where I had grown up. Still, by moving here and leaving behind my former way of life, my allergy shots and pills, and the social supports that I was used to, I needed to learn how to live on the land that had become my home. Thanks to family camping in tents as a child, and later as an Eagle Scout, I had some Earth skills to ease the transition. As a scholar of sorts, I also had some research skills. Local people and friends shared with me what they had learned as I further learnt and re-learnt how to improve my health.

During a period of enforced personal austerity (I was broke), I realized I couldn’t just run down to the corner drugstore or herb shop and buy a cure. So I began more seriously to gather my own remedial herbs. Then came another long northern winter and I realized that most commonly used herbs were not available for gathering. In a land so populated with Trees, it seemed obvious to look to them for tonics.

Providentially, the bark, twigs, buds, and Evergreen needles of Trees are available all winter in the Northeastern Woodlands. Once one learns to identify Trees, much help is at hand. I soon noticed that most people know little about the healing way of Trees.

The seed of this book really got planted when I was out walking one winter. My mouth was dry and I had no water with me, yet I reasoned that if I asked a Tree for a twig to chew on, my saliva would start moving and I wouldn’t feel so dry and thirsty. Still, I wondered: Which tree is safe to nibble on?

Back in my little library at the farmhouse, I was delighted to find in Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss a whole chapter called Medicinal Trees, with at least a paragraph about most of the Tree species that grow in this area. It rang a bell that is still ringing in The Healing Trees.

My interest and my experience as a student led me to further research. The words of Tom Law, the yoga instructor at the Woodstock Festival, came back to remind me: Whatever you learn, you take on the responsibility to pass it on. I wasn’t just learning for myself.

The Healing Trees is a digest of the information I have gathered and written down over the past thirty-eight years. It has been my way of learning about the local Trees: what attributes/qualities they offer us humans other than just the sawdust, lumber, paper pulp, and firewood to which we are so indebted.

Though much of the knowledge of the life-giving qualities of our neighbouring Trees has been lost to our collective consciousness, some folks in the past wrote down what they knew, observed, and did. Their information and the experiences of many contemporary herbalists have been gathered here in one volume toward reviving a healthy relationship between Humans and Trees and to assist in the renewal of our knowledge of these helpful beings. Often, with increased knowledge comes increased appreciation and respect.

Essentially, The Healing Trees is the book I wish I had been able to read when I first moved here. It is organized in a way that I likely would have found helpful toward learning more about my new neighbours. May it be so for you as well.

I am here presenting a palette from which a painting of health can be imagined and put together with the aid of Nature. It is unlikely that using Trees as medicine will overcome a poor diet or the lack of exercise, yet even the slightest interchange with Trees may occasion a little exercise and inspire a healthier way of living.

The Healing Trees is the only book that I know of that focuses solely on the edible and herbal qualities of Northeastern Woodland Trees. Still, when heading out to meet Trees in your locale, you might find a detailed field guide to be a worthy companion to this volume (a few are recommended in the Bibliography).

I am aiming to share with you, the reader, some of the tools from our past, and the present, to enhance our nourishment from Nature and to seed a future in co-operation with Nature. I personally wanted to know more … and still do. I want to continue learning how to live here in a healthy and Earth-friendly way … and now I share with you some of what I am learning. May it foster a co-operative and respectful dialogue with Trees.

What anyone does with the information in these pages is their own responsibility. The Healing Trees is NOT a prescriber (i.e., for symptom X use Tree Y). Life offers many possibilities, and we each make our own personal choices in every moment.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The Flowers

MANY FRIENDS AND acquaintances have helped and encouraged me along the way toward getting this information into a book and available for you to read. My deep and sincere gratitude:

To Christina, for her Love, Inspiration, nourishing cooking, typing the original manuscript and research notes and certainly for sharing Life together with me with all its myriad changes.

To my parents, Irving and Georgia, who brought me into this life in a way that fostered a love of learning and who generously funded me with seed money while I did the basic research and who encouraged me all along to continue on to completion.

To Hilkka for a friendship of many years and for her love of expressing herself through Art in such a way as to open our eyes to a world she can see that lives among us. And for her willingness to put on hold her awesome, inspiring sculptures to help this book have worthy images that can help us all see the Trees.

To Jane Karchmar, my editor, for reminding me that though my love for, and learning about, Trees has no ending, this book does. And for giving a comprehensible form to all the pieces I gathered together.

To Steven, Megan, Oscar, and Cedar for sharing their love of plants, herbs, and tasty fermented foods, and for reminding me that this region is rich in natural medicines that are worthy of attention and respect.

To Ethan, for showing me details in Nature that were right in front of my eyes and for joining me in working with, in, and among the Trees … and for sharing so much more that words cannot describe.

To Daryl, for inspiring a whole lot more integrity, responsibility, and Mirth in my life. And also for helping me with websites and other computer details that are naturally beyond my ken.

To Ben, for showing me incredible photographic closeups in Nature in an artistic way. And for demonstrating with his life the ability to learn what he was interested in when he was interested in learning it. And for all the computer help.

To Sandra Woods, the herbalist, and the other People of Madonna House Rural Apostolate Community who opened their hearts, home, and herbal library while I did some concentrated book research.

To Stephen Jenkinson and Nathalie Roy for reviving my latent love of scholarship and study, and for eloquently living a life that demonstrates respect for the Life and Consciousness in Everything.

To Shannon Kennedy for actively helping me with the Guide to Uses and Qualities.

To Cousin David Passman, Joseph Reeve, Duncan Noble, Jeff Muzzi, Diana MacAuley, and Blair Richards–Koeslag, for solid editorial help to make this book more readable and useful.

To Mary Beth for introducing me to Spruce buds.

To Morninglory Farm and Morninglory Community for helping sustain me and my family and friends for forty-eight years, while teaching me about Life on Earth, consensus decision making, and co-operation for mutual benefit.

To the Killaloe and area community who welcomed this homeless immigrant and his friends when we didn’t really seem like such a great idea. May this book be a worthy way of giving back to you for all you have given to me.

To Blue Skies Music Festival, The Killaloe Craft and Community Fair, and the Killaloe Herb Gathering for allowing me to present the basics of this book in workshops at their events during the summer of 2016. I learned so much from the questions and responses of those who attended, and received great encouragement for carrying on.

To the Killaloe Public Library and its staff and volunteers who have graciously helped me with gathering books I have needed over the years.

To the Ravens who fly around all winter and keep bringing the good word, right when I need it.

And most certainly to all the researchers, scholars, writers, and herbalists whose works and words I have lent an ear and an eye to.

I KNOW I HAVE left out many people without whose kindnesses over the past thirty-eight years The Healing Trees book would not be here. My failure to mention you is not intentional, and I sincerely thank you. Some of you will see yourselves mentioned on my website: www.healingtreesbook.com.

INTRODUCTION:

Within the Leaves of the Book

Let food be your medicine.

Hippocrates, ca. 600 BCE

MAY I PLEASE introduce you to my friends and neighbours, the Trees of the Northeastern Woodlands. Trees are magnificent conscious Beings. Full of Life, they are capable of enhancing the lives of humans in so many ways. Most of us are aware of some Tree qualities that people have benefited from, the most obvious perhaps being shade, oxygen, erosion control, pollution control, windbreaks, lumber for building and furniture, paper, and firewood. Yet few people know of (or shall I say, remember?) the many beneficial uses our ancestors found for the Trees in their daily lives, at a time, not so very long ago, when nearly all people lived closer to the Earth and thus to the Trees.

Many books on survival mention which Tree parts to nibble on if one is hungry and is not carrying food. There is a great potential available in these Trees. Buds, twigs, barks, and Evergreen needles are accessible year-round, at least to those willing to get out and enjoy winter—a time when all other herbs have vanished into dormancy beneath Earth’s warming blanket of snow. Herbalists of old rarely carried dried packets of herbs. Instead, they relied on what plants/Trees were available seasonally in the locale where they were.

Many of the books I consulted for writing The Healing Trees were written pre-1900 by European herbalists, botanists, and researchers and their descendants after settling in North America. (As some of the terms used at that time are not in modern usage, I have provided a glossary to help with translations.) They had observed and consulted with local Indigenous tribal people on how they could maintain health and heal injuries with the plants that grew where they lived.

Since I began this research in 1978, this tradition has continued and grown. Many other folks have taken up an interest in how herbs work with the body toward health and healing. There are now many excellent modern herbalists writing books and posting their findings on the Internet. A growing body of scientific research about the healing qualities of several Trees is also being done and published. I list some of this in the Bibliography.

I have devoted most of my attention herein to detailed information about individual Tree species and their many useful parts, from root to leaf, to wood to wildlife food. This is in Chapter Three: The Main Tree Trunk. From this section, I have assembled a subchapter of Chapter Four, a Side Branch called a Guide to Tree Uses and Properties. This is intended to help one search for which Trees in the Main Tree Trunk have the properties or uses one might most be most interested in.

Chapter Four also has several other related Side Branches to the Main Tree Trunk. Therein I share some of my personal experiences of using Tree medicine and food in my daily life. The government of Canada did research on the content of Vitamin C in Native Trees back in the early 1940s when there was great concern about being able to supply Canadians with Vitamin C during wartime. Thankfully, they published this information, and Library and Archives Canada kept a copy, enabling me to present its findings to you as another Side Branch. Great gratitude to Inter-library loan and the Killaloe Public Library!

As I was learning a little about Herbalism and Herbal Methods while doing this research, another Side Branch developed that reports on this big subject. Both practical information from many sources, and my personal speculations are shared. This is followed by basic guidelines for Harvesting and Storing Tree Parts.

Campers, canoeists, hikers, loggers, and generally people who enjoy living a little or lots of their time in the woods, or near Trees, may find the Forestry First Aid Side Branch to be immediately helpful when needs arise. Again, this Branch is a pointer to which Trees may be helpful for which situations, and the Main Tree Trunk will need to be perused for deeper and more complete information.

Edibles from Trees by the Season is a Side Branch that answers the basic questions of what is available for the respectful asking during the different seasons. Respectful Tree nibbling is possible when one is hungry, thirsty, or simply curious.

When a Tree is burned due to forest fire, in a campfire, or in a heating or cooking stove, ashes remain. This has happened enough times in the past that humans have a collection of stories of what can be done with these ashes. I share some of them in the Wood Ashes Side Branch.

Along this path, I have encountered the writings and words of many other people whose sentiments inspired me both to continue walking my path and that felt in harmony with what I am experiencing and writing about. I want to honour them and you by sharing their well-considered Relevant Notes and Quotes. May you also find some harmony therein.

The Glossary of Herbal Terms is at the end of the book to help define any terms that I may have used that are not common in our daily use of the English language.