Paper Birch
Parts Usually Used
Young leaves, inner bark, leaf buds
Description of Plant(s) and Culture
White birch is a tree grows to a height of 65 feet; it has chalky white bark which can be peeled off in horizontal strips. Its leaves are cordate, bright green above and lighter beneath, serrate, and glabrous or minutely hairy. The flowers are borne in yellowish male and gray-green female catkins. When the male catkins turn yellow with pollen, the green female catkins enlarge to produce numerous two-winged seeds, developing into seed cones.
Flowers seen in April-May.
Where Found
Found growing in the northern United States, Canada, and the northern part of Europe. Upland woods, often in pure stands, from Labrador to Alaska, near the northern limit for trees, south to North Carolina and Colorado, in mountains in the south of its range.
Medicinal Properties
Astringent, diuretic, diaphoretic
Biochemical Information
Saponins, traces of essential oil, tannin, bitter principle, glycosides
Legends, Myths and Stories
The inner bark contains an oil which is identical in flavor with that of the wintergreen plant (Gaultheria procumbens). A wholesome wintergreen-flavored tea may be made by pouring boiling water or boiling birch sap over diced pieces of the inner birch bark or birch twigs and letting it steep for a few minutes. According to legend, Christ was beaten with birch rods. The fasces, a bound bundle of birch sticks enclosing an axe with the blade projecting, were carried by Roman soldiers in advance of emperors or important officials.
These fasces symbolized the state’s power to punish by flogging (the birch sticks) or by putting to death (the axe). Birch wood has been used for furniture, wooden spoons, tool handles, and broomsticks. Witches on Walpurgis Night were said to have ridden on broomsticks made of birch. Native Americans used the water-resistant birch bark for their canoes and wigwams. To the people of northern Europe, the birch was a sacred tree.
In the Kalevala, a Finnish epic, the birch is designated as a holy tree of great use to mankind. The Germanic peoples dedicated it to their god of thunder, Thor.
Uses
Historically, herbalists prepared tea from paper birch leaves to address kidney stones and gravel, and regarded the infusion as a mild sedative. Traditional practitioners recommended a decoction of the leaves or the fresh expressed juice for baldness, while leaf washes and bath additives were employed for chronic skin complaints. The inner bark yielded an oil that was substituted for wintergreen in liniments.
Folk traditions utilized inner bark preparations with the intention of managing headaches, menstrual and abdominal cramps, gout, dropsy, acne, eczema, pruritus, rheumatic discomfort, diarrhea, and colic. Liquid derived from boiled bark served as a wash for sores, wounds, and boils, and was additionally administered to expel worms. The sap was gathered as a spring tonic, applied as a hair treatment, or fermented into beer.
Furthermore, an oil resembling wintergreen was historically distilled from the twigs and inner bark.
Bibliography
The Herb Book , by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974. Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants , by Steven Foster and James A. , Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000 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.
Vogel, Teufen (AR) Switzerland 1952, 1991 Chinese Medicinal Herbs , compiled by Shih-Chen Li, Georgetown Press, San Francisco, California, 1973. , Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition The Magic of Herbs , by David Conway, published by Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London, England. , Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. , Copyright 1988, published 1992 The Complete Medicinal Herbal , by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993 Indian Herbalogy of North America , by Alma R.
, 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 The Healing Plants , by Mannfried Pahlow, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. , Hauppauge, NY 11788, 1992