Hi honyak,
Thank you for an interesting question.
SPECIES: Populus fremontii
http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/popfre/management_considerations.html
PALATABILITY:
The palatability of Fremont cottonwood to domestic livestock and
wildlife has been rated as follows:
Horses useless - California
Horses poor - Utah
This species has been called "sweet cottonwood" because horses eat the inner bark
NUTRITIONAL VALUE:
Fremont cottonwood is rated as fair for both energy and protein content.
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Marie Claire Magazine December, 2000" I Survived..." by Drew
Barrymore, Cameron Diaz & Lucy Liu
http://www.boss-inc.com/08marieclaire.html
"Jill gave her a branch from a cottonwood tree to chew on. Cottonwood
has salicylic acid in it, which is also found in aspirin. This took
Lucy's fever down and brought her back to steady feet--amazing.You can
also chew the tip of the branch until the fibers separate and, voilá,
a natural toothbrush!
[edit]
Day 3 I woke up with the worst taste in my mouth. I had a cold sweat
and Cameron said I looked really pale. I drank some water. Jill gave
me a piece of a cottonwood branch to chew on. That helped me clear my
mouth and my senses. I put on my wet socks and wet boots and off we
went."
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Yet another poplar!
http://www.essentiallyoils.com/Newsletters/April_2002_Newsletter/april_2002_newsletter.html
"I was just about to pack up on poplars when, out of the blue, arrived
a sample of absolute of black cottonwood or western balsam poplar
(Populus balsamifera L. subsp. trichocarpa (Torr. & A. Gray)
Brayshaw), accompanied by a wodge of information.
Hardy, straight trunked, fast growing if provided with ample moisture
and plenty of nutrients, tallest of all British Columbia?s
broad-leaved trees, has a fragrant resin from the sticky buds which
bees use as a caulking material in their hives, and produces a
chemical in the young twigs which deters snowshoe hare from feeding on
them. That?s telling me!
Strictly, western balsam poplar occurs in the northern part of British
Columbia east of the Rockies, and black cottonwood west of the Rocky
Mountains. Where their ranges overlap, they often hybridize. They
prefer areas with lots of light, favour floodplains and moist upland
sites. The balsam grows to 25 metres, and the cottonwood almost
double that.
Male and female catkins are found on different trees, the male 2 to
3cm long and the female 8 to 20cm, and produce large quantities of
floating fluff [cotton] that carry the tiny seeds. The trees?
capsule-like fruit also release seeds covered in white, fluffy hairs.
Poplar balsam populus was regarded by the West Coast Indians as a
Mother Herb due to its incredible healing actions on both internal and
external problems. Teas, salves, tinctures and washes were made from
most parts of the tree including the bark, leaves and sap. These were
to be used anywhere that the body was not correctly functioning.
The leaves, which are thick, shiny, dark green with a pale,
brown-marked underside, about 6 to 12cm long, were used to wrap wound
and bone or joint injuries along with a salve made from the sap being
rubbed into the affected areas."
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Las Pilitas Incredible Edibles
http://www.laspilitas.com/classes/edible.htm
Scientific Name - Populus fremontii
Common Name - Fremont Cottonwood
Uses - Catkins raw or cooked inner bark as emergency food
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COTTONWOOD [Populus angustissima]
http://www.pictographcave.org/educate/content/ssocstudies.html
"Also the cottonwood was a food source. The bark was carefully cut
lengthwise. The stringy, spaghetti-like inside was scrapped out and
used for survival food. Dyes and paints were extracted from the plant.
Leaves were used as a poultice for sores, boils, and bruises. Tea from
the bark was used to relieve tuberculosis and whooping cough."
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Tree Book
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/library/documents/treebook/blackcottonwood.htm
Black cottonwood - Populus balsamifera ssp. trichocarpa
Balsam poplar -Populus balsamifera ssp. balsamifera
"First Nations people used the resin from buds to treat sore throats,
coughs, lung pain and rheumatism. An ointment, called balm of Gilead,
was made from the winter buds of balsam poplar to relieve congestion.
The buds contain a waxy resin with anti-infectant properties still
used in many modern natural health ointments."
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CottonWood - A Tree For All Seasons
http://www.lewis-clark.org/COTTONWDS/pl_cott1.htm
"Cottonwoods Populus trichocarpa are the "tree of the people,"
connected to humans and their civilization by sight and smell, in
spirit and in story. For centuries, cottonwood groves have welcomed
travelers on western rivers with an offer of shade and shelter.
Indians grazed their ponies on cottonwood saplings. Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark relied on the groves for wheels, wagons and canoes.
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Kansas Collection Books - The Indian War of 1864, by Eugene Ware
http://www.kancoll.org/books/ware/ew_chap05.htm
"It was at the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon that we were to build our
military post. The place was a great crossing for the Indians going
north and south. The valley here was several miles wide. There was a
large island in the river of several thousand acres, upon which grew
the finest grass to be found in the country, and there were some
scrubby willows and cottonwoods; so that the Indians coming from the
north found it a good stopping-place to feed their ponies either in
summer or winter, because in the winter the ponies could eat the
cottonwood brush. In addition to this, Cottonwood Canyon gave a fine
passage to the south.
It is not usually realized how much the American Indians formerly
depended on tree barks for food. The eastern Indians favored the barks
from the pine family, especially that from the white pine, although
the inner barks of other trees, such as black birch and slippery elm,
were relished..."
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The following article provides general information on the nutrients in
Pine Trees with references to Native Americans. Even though it's not
about Cottonwood Trees, the information can be used as a general
reference on how different parts of trees were used for food.
Did You Ever Eat a Pine Tree? by Euell Gibbons
http://www.ruralvermont.com/vermontweathervane/issues/winter/97012/eatpine.shtml
"In the trunk of a large tree the only living part is some layers of
live cells outside the wood proper and inside the bark-called the
sapwood, the cambium, and the inner bark. All these layers put
together may be only a fraction of an inch thick.
The living layers of cambium and inner bark on many kinds of trees
have often been used in medicine, in home remedies, and even as a
source of food. In 1732, when Linnaeus, the father of modern botany,
was tramping through the Lapland, he reported that the Lapps were
largely subsisting on "fir bark." This was from the tree known to us
as Scotch pine.
The Lapps removed the brown outer layer and hung the strips of white
inner bark under the eaves of their barns to dry. If food was
plentiful the next winter, this bark was fed to their dogs and cattle,
and was reported to be very fattening, but if other foods were scarce,
the Lapps would grind this dried bark and make a famine bread of it,
which was very nutritious, but, to Linnaeus's taste, not very
palatable.
It is not usually realized how much the American Indians formerly
depended on tree barks for food. The eastern Indians favored the barks
from the pine family, especially that from the white pine, although
the inner barks of other trees, such as black birch and slippery elm,
were relished.
The eastern white pine is one of the largest forest trees found from
Canada south to Georgia and west to Iowa. The bark is greenish and
smooth on young trees, becoming brown and furrowed on large, old ones.
The needles are a grayish blue-green in color, soft and flexible with
no prickles or points, three to five inches long, growing five in a
cluster a valuable recognition feature.
Fresh From Your Local Sawmill
I had no trouble finding white pine bark with which to experiment. I
simply inquired at a country sawmill where white pine had been
recently cut, drove where they directed me, and peeled the bark from
the stumps. The inner bark must be separated from the dry, outer bark.
I tried boiling this fresh inner bark as the Indians did, and it
reduced to a glutinous mass from which the more bothersome wood fibers
were easily removed. I'm sure it was wholesome and nutritious, but in
the area of palatability it left much to be desired. It is said that
the Indians cooked this bark with meat so I tried boiling some with
beef, but when I tasted it I felt that instead of making the bark
edible I had merely ruined a good piece of beef.
I imagine that one who grew up eating this food, as the Indian
children did, would find it good.
I wanted some dried bark for herbal remedies and further food
experiments, so I hung some of my strips of white pine bark in a warm
attic room until it was thoroughly dry. It still wouldn't grind very
well, so I gave it an additional drying in an oven with the door
propped slightly open so moisture could escape. The heat caused the
bark to swell slightly, and it became a great deal more friable and
grindable. The redried bark was cut into small pieces with a hatchet,
and ground, about a cupful at a time, in the electric blender. Most
recipes for home remedies made of this inner bark call for coarsely
ground bark, so I put the pulverized bark through a flour sifter,
using the fine part that passed through the sieve for food experiments
and the coarser stuff for cough syrup.
The fine powder was a weak yellowish-orange color with a slight odor
of turpentine and a taste that was at first very sweet and
mucilaginous, but was quickly followed by a disagreeable bitterness
and astringency. There is no doubt about this material's being
nutritious. It contains sugar and starch, and, according to two U.S.
Government sources, it is rich in vitamin C.
I hoped the bitterness and astringency would disappear on cooking but,
alas, these tastes are very persistent, and I can't say that the bread
I made with it was an unqualified success. I mixed the fine powder
half-and-half with wheat flour and followed a recipe for yeast-raised
rolls. They were of good texture and perfectly edible, but they also
had a disagreeable bitter taste and more than a hint of turpentine
flavor about them, and I felt the rolls would have been better without
the white pine flour.
Dried white pine bark is still a valuable ingredient in cough
remedies. Its medicinal properties are expectorant and diuretic. It is
most often prescribed in the title role of Compound White Pine Syrup.
This is a real herbal mixture and a good illustration of the fact that
modern medicine does not disdain herbal remedies if they are
effective.
Candied White Pine
New Englanders formerly candied the peeled new shoots of white pine,
gathered before they became woody. I tried some of these peeled tender
shoots, boiling them until tender, draining off that cooking water and
then boiling them for 20 minutes in a syrup made of equal parts of
sugar and water. The syrup was then drained off, and the candied
shoots were partly dried, then rolled in granulated sugar.
This tasted a little more civilized than the foods I had been trying,
but even this candy was nothing about which I could get very excited.
I would have considered it a pretty good tasting cough medicine, and
it would probably help control a cough, but I'm sure I have eaten much
better confections.
White pine needles have been tested for nutritional benefits, and they
have good yields of vitamin A and about 5 times as much vitamin C as
found in lemons. Had those old-timers who used to suffer from scurvy
every winter when fresh vegetables were unavailable used an infusion
of white pine needles instead of tea or coffee, they would never have
been touched by scurvy.
Pine Needle Tea
Pine Needle Tea, made by pouring 1 pint of boiling water over 1 ounce
of fresh white pine needles chopped fine, is about the most palatable
pine product I have tasted. With a squeeze of lemon and a little sugar
it is almost enjoyable, and it gives a great feeling of virtue to know
that as you drink it you are fortifying your body with two essential
vitamins in which most modern diets are deficient.
I have high respect for the medicinal and nutritional properties of
white pine products, but you must have gathered by now that I care
very little for their taste. Nevertheless, the economic hazards of
writing for a living being what they are, I intend to bear in mind
that these lordly trees can furnish substantial and nutritious, if
somewhat ill-tasting, food in times of need, but the emergency will
have to be pretty dire before I consume any large quantity of it. My
current taste in food-gathering poses no threat of extinction to the
white pine."
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Limberlost Plant of the Winter Quarter
http://our.tentativetimes.net/gspnews/swamper1.html
Common Name: Eastern Cottonwood
Scientific Name: Populus deltoides
Family: Willow
"The willow family has two genera - the willow, Salix, and the
cottonwood, Populus. These trees are like cousins, since they share a
lot of common characteristics, but they have a different pair of
parents.
Their name comes from the cotton-like fluff that carries the seed from
the female trees. For this reason, male trees should only be used in
yard plantings. The males lack the fluff, and their rusty red blossom
makes them easy to distinguish."
[edit]
"What are some of the uses for the wood? The wood is white and
tasteless, so the next time you finish eating an ice cream bar, take a
look at the stick. It?s cottonwood! Other uses include kite sticks,
strawberry boxes, and paper.
Here?s an interesting bit of information. According to Indian legend,
a cottonwood leaf was twisted around a finger, and it formed a cone
and tepees were discovered."
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Best regards,
tlspiegel |
