English Walnut
Parts Usually Used
Leaves, outer hulls and bark
Description of Plant(s) and Culture
The English walnut tree is widely cultivated for its wide-spreading branches. It grows to about 80 feet high and has gray bark and oblong-ovate, entire leaflets that are sticky when young but glabrous later. Blooming in May, the male flowers appear in axillary catkins, the female in terminal spikes. The fruit is the common walnut.
Where Found
Cultivated
Medicinal Properties
Astringent, tonic, nutritive, demulcent, laxative (bark), stomachic. Juglone is believed to have an antifungal property; the hulls and leaves are highly astringent and contain tannin as well as juglandin, a bitter principle.
Biochemical Information
Juglone, isojuglone, essential oil, inositol, phytin, phytosterols, oxidase, vitamins A, B, C, and E, and ellagic, laric, myristic, arachic, linoleic, linolenic, isolinolenic, and oleic acids
Uses
Historically, herbalists prepared an infusion of the leaves as a stomachic tonic to encourage appetite and administered it for catarrhal enteritis. External applications of the decoction, such as washes or bath additives, were traditionally employed for complaints including rheumatism, gout, glandular swellings, gum issues, sweaty feet, acne, dandruff, general skin ailments, and to check excessive lactation following weaning.
Traditional sources also recommended a decoction of the green walnut husk for declining virility, while an infusion of the plant was historically used as a hair rinse to address hair loss.
Bibliography
The Complete Medicinal Herbal , by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993 The Herb Book , by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974. The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine , by Dr. A. , 27 Pine Street (Box 876) New Canaan, CT. 06840-0876.
Copyright Verlag A. , Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. , 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023