Dogwood

Parts Usually Used

Inner bark, berries, twigs

Description of Plant(s) and Culture

Dogwood is a native American, our most showy deciduous tree, growing to 30 feet high; the bark is brown and rough, the leaves opposite, ovate, pointed, and darker green above than beneath. Latex threads appear at veins when leaves are split apart. The flowers are small and greenish-yellow but are obscured by the large, white or pink bracts so that the whole looks like a large white or pink flower.

Flowers are in clusters, April-May. The fruit is a glossy, dry, scarlet berry two celled and two seeds, is inedible and very bitter; October-November. Other varieties: Chinese dogwood (Cornus machrophylla), Chinese name Sung-yang; in Japan this tree is Celtis muku or Ehretia serrata; Jamaican dogwood (Piscidia erythrina) used medicinally for panic attacks and excessive stress; and Osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) used by the Native Americans, the inner bark has properties of quinine used as tea internally.

Where Found

Found from Maine to Florida and west to Minnesota, Kansas, and Texas. Grows in the understorey of woods, along roadsides and in old fields

Medicinal Properties

Astringent, febrifuge, stimulant, tonic

Biochemical Information

Tannic and gallic acids, resin, gum, oil, wax, lignin, lime potash and iron

Legends, Myths and Stories

Widely used in the South, especially during the Civil War for malarial fevers and chronic diarrhea. An 1830 herbal reported that the Native Americans and captive Africans in Virginia were remarkable for the whiteness of their teeth, and attributed it to the use of Dogwood chewing sticks. Once chewed for a few minutes, the tough fibers at the ends of the twigs split into a fine soft “brush”.

Also, the Native American tribe, the Arikaras, mixed bearberry with the dried inner bark of the red dogwood to make sacred tobacco which they smoked in a regulation red pipestone pipe.

Uses

Historically, herbalists utilized dogwood bark in ointments for fevers, colds, and similar complaints, as well as for diarrhea. Traditional practitioners also employed it as a substitute for Peruvian bark. Externally, folk traditions applied the bark as a poultice onto sores and superficial ulcers. Additionally, the twigs were historically chewed as early precursors to the modern toothpick.

Bibliography

The Herb Book , by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974. The Complete Medicinal Herbal , by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993 Chinese Medicinal Herbs , compiled by Shih-Chen Li, Georgetown Press, San Francisco, California, 1973. Indian Uses of Native Plants , by Edith Van Allen Murphey, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1958, print 1990 Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants , by Steven Foster and James A.

, Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. , Copyright 1988, published 1992 Indian Herbalogy of North America , by Alma R. , Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, 1973 American Folk Medicine , by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1973 Prairie Smoke , by Melvin R. Gilmore, Minnesota Historical Society Press, St.

Paul, Minnesota 55101, copyright 1987. , 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014, first printed by the United States Government Printing Office, Washington, in 1928, this Dover edition 1974 An Instant Guide to Medicinal Plants , by Pamela Forey and Ruth Lindsay, Crescent Books (January 27, 1992). The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book) , edited by William H.

Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. , 1974