Spring Tree Medicine: Willow, Wild Cherry, Sweet Birch, Sugar Maple & Alder
Spring Willow Magic
Spring is one of the classic times to work with tree medicine, during the season when the sap is rising, the vascular cambium is active with sap and nutrients, and the trees are waking back up. Below I share some of my favorite trees to work with in the spring and my hope is that even if you don’t have all of these trees in your bioregion, you at least have a few. The trees with medicinal barks discussed here can also be harvesting in the fall, which is another time that the medicinal, inner cambium layer of the bark is active, as the trees are sending those nutrients down to their roots to get through the winter. So, if you miss some of these trees this spring please know you can also work with most of them in the fall! There are many different tree medicines, but some of my other favorites I work with in the spring are Willow (Salix spp), Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina), Sweet Birch (Betula lenta), Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), and Alder (Alnus spp), which I discuss below.
Harvesting Barks
Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina)
Harvesting Thin Twigs
Willow twigs (Salix discolor)
You can simply use clippers to cut young, very thin branches into small little pieces and dry or process for medicine that way. In this method you’re getting a little wood with your harvest, but because the branches are so thin it’s a very small wood: bark ratio and it’s not enough to dilute the medicine so much that it won’t still work. I frequently use this method because of the ease of processing for drying or medicine-making and because it has a fairly small impact on the tree. See the photo below of Willow twigs that are the right size for this method. One way to harvest twigs is to think of yourself as pruning the tree, which can sometimes be beneficial for the tree. Branches that are crossed are especially good branches to cut. And always be sure to sterilize your clippers between use (rubbing alcohol works great) to avoid spreading disease.
Harvesting barks is best done in the spring as the sap is rising and the plants are sending nutrients up to their budding leaves or it can also be done in the fall when the whole process is happening in reverse!
There are a few different methods of harvesting bark and- regardless of which method you use- please always follow sustainable harvesting guidelines and ethics.
Scraping Bark
If you harvest young branches, the bark can be easily scraped off with a knife- especially in the spring while the sap is running. See the pic above for an example of this. On young twigs and branches, the outer bark layer will be tender and non-woody and the inner, green cambium layer of the bark, which is the medicinal part, will be attached to it and they will come-off together. It’s fine to dry it like this (or make medicine with it), rather than trying to separate the two layers, which is nearly impossible. The young outer bark is not harmful and is so tender itself that it really doesn’t weaken the medicine enough to worry about separating it from the inner cambium layer in my experience.
Willow twigs (Salix discolor)
Harvesting Mature Bark
You can harvest the mature bark from trees using a drawknife. This is a more advanced technique and care must be taken never to girdle a tree because that will kill it. This method is best done in the early spring when the sap is running and the cambium layer will more easily separate from the older, outer bark, and the fall will work too! In this method, you really don’t want the older bark in your medicine. The bark is too thick and woody. I only advise this type of harvest with fallen tree limbs or if the tree had to be taken down for some reason. The other methods have a much smaller impact on the tree and still make fantastic medicine.
Harvesting Drops
Let us not forget about the most sustainable way of all to harvest medicinal tree barks, by harvesting from recently dropped branches that have fallen in storms or have been pruned off the tree!
Favorite Spring Tree Medicines
Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum)
The medicinal part of this tree is the sap, unlike the rest of the trees discussed in this handout which have medicinal barks. Maple season starts in my region at the end of February and often goes until the end of March but it all depends on the weather. The trees require warm days over freezing and cold nights below freezing to get good runs of sap and every year is a little bit different with its timing. It’s truly a cherished late winter ritual to get out and tap our maple each year, knowing spring will be around the corner soon. Sugar Maples grow throughout the northeast and upper Midwest and up into southern Canada too.
A few other trees you can tap for sap are Red Maple (Acer rubrum), Birch (Betula lenta, B. alleghaniensis, B. papyrifera), and Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) and other Juglans species.
Maple Sap- What is it?
Maple sap is fluid transported in the tree's xylem cells, which transport fluid and nutrients from the tree's roots up to its branches and leaves. Sap runs the most in the spring, as the trees are waking-up and is the substance that is collected and then boiled down to make maple syrup. Knowing it provides nutrients to the tree as it leafs out in the spring, it only makes sense that of course sap is rich in many vitamins, minerals, and sugars (typically it is about 2% sugar) essential for health and growth. Maple sap (also called maple water) comes from our native Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) and contains many trace minerals including Potassium, Magnesium, Iron, Copper, Zinc, Manganese and Calcium, antioxidants, polyphenols, electrolytes, over 50 different micronutrients, and some sources even say prebiotics. It has all the nutritional benefits of maple syrup, but without the high sugar content! Lucky for us, we humans co-evolved with plants and can easily assimilate the vitamins and minerals found in them. I'll take plant-based nutrients over a multi-vitamin any day.
Maples & Harmonizing with the Spring
The nutritional benefits of sap are obvious- but there's more! Drinking maple sap harmonizes us with the energy of the spring. I am huge on the concept of "harmonizing with the seasons"- that is- aligning our bodies and psyches with the season at hand so we may best partake in the gifts it has to offer (for instance our bodies naturally want to "wake-up" and cleanse in the spring). Drinking maple sap is one of the surest ways I know to do this. Welcoming that upward moving, nutrient-dense sap into our bodies harmonizes us with the awakening plants, the swelling buds, germinating seeds, and all that upward and outward movement of spring that just cannot be stopped. Connecting to nature in this way is good for both our body and soul.
Historical & Ethnobotanical Uses
Maple sap has long been considered good medicine. In America colonists learned about the Sugar Maple from the indigenous peoples already living here. Sugar Maple has cultural significance for many indigenous tribes and this is a great resource to learn more about this. Early American colonists used maple sap for rheumatism, arthritis, inflammatory conditions, and as a treasured spring tonic. It is also said to have mild anti-bacterial properties. Globally, in South Korea maple sap is used as a strengthening health tonic, for cleansing, to strengthen the bones (we do know it contains calcium) and even lower blood pressure! My acupuncturist often had a big pitcher of it sitting out in the spring in her office and labeled it "Tree Qi," which I loved!
How to Use It
I love drinking this straight like water (or even better, right from the tree!). It is also divine to boil it for tea, and then your tea is perfectly sweetened! It's also nice simply warmed-up on its own and sipped. The fresh stuff should last up to 6 days in the fridge, lasts at least a few days unrefrigerated as long as temps are cool, or may be frozen for later use. Bottled maple sap is starting to pop-up as a new beverage on the market (usually sold as "maple water"), so keep an eye out for that if you don't have direct access to your own. Any sugar shack should have plenty as well and might sell it to you if you ask!
Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina)
Part used: Inner bark (medicine), Fruit (food as medicine)
Herbal energetics: Cool, moist
Taste: Sweet, Bitter
Harvest: Inner bark- Spring and fall; some sources recommend only harvesting in summer or fall when the cyanogenic glycosides are said to be lower, however the consensus of most herbalists (myself included) is that its fine and perfectly safe to harvest in the spring; Fruit- late summer
Herbal actions: Inner bark- antispasmodic, antipyretic, antitussive, nervine; Fruit- nutritive
Preparations: Tincture, Decoction, Syrup, Cordial/Elixir
Dosage: Folk tincture- Start with ½-1 tsp 3x/day, up to 3-4 tsp/day or more, as-needed; Decoction- ½ cup every half hour, as-needed; Syrup- 1 tbsp every half hour, as-needed; Cordial/Elixir- Start with ½-1 tsp 3x/day, up to 3-4 tsp/day or more, as-needed
Also known by the common name Black Cherry, this herb is a beloved remedy in our home for painful, dry, spasming, unproductive coughs. It can be made into a cough syrup, decoction, or elixir, but my preferred way to prepare it is as a tincture. It has a delicious almond flavor that kids often love so compliance is often good too! It’s also strongly indicated in signs of excess heat in the body, which can manifest as heart-based anxiety and lots of allergies, especially lots of food sensitivities.
There are varying perspectives on the best way to prepare the tincture of Wild Cherry, with some folks suggesting a classic tincture and other recommending a cold infusion of the leaves over the tincture. I’ve experimented with both and find a classic tincture to be a great way to extract it, but you can read about the cold infusion method in herbalist Jim McDonald’s monograph on it in the references and resources section below if you’re interested.
Some folks have concerns over the fact that the leaves, bark, and pits contain cyanogenic glycosides, particularly prunasin and amygdalin (which give it the almond taste and smell), which can by chemically converted by the plant when acted upon by certain plant enzymes into hydrogen cyanide, which is poison. For this reason, some sources say to harvest this bark in the summer and fall when these glycosides are reportedly lower. However, Wild Cherry has a very high safety rating, even for children.
Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina) twigs
As Kerry Bone and Simon Mills explain in their book, The Essential Guide to Herbal Safety, “although hydrocyanic acid (cyanide) is a poison, oral intake of prunasin is not necessarily toxic, as hydrolysis in the digestive tract or by the liver leads to a slow release of very low levels of hydrocyanic acid, which can readily be detoxified by the body.” The herbalists Michael Moore wrote, “...chokecherry bark presents a potentially dangerous group of physiological responses in a completely safe package. The shadow of hydrocyanic acid is still there... but it is completely safe and diffused. The mechanism might make a pharmacologist cringe because it so closely that of true cyanotic poisons, but once again, it is safe and reliable for even small children. It has been used safely for centuries, probably millennia, in such diverse places as Siberia, Germany, the lakeside villages of Mandan, the mountains of northern New Mexico, and the valleys of Kentucky."
And finally, herbalist Lisa Ganora, author of Herbal Constituents: Foundations of Phytochemistry writes, "Wild Cherry bark contains extremely low levels of prunasin which is classified as a 'cyanogenic glycoside', meaning it can release hydrocyanic acid (HCN) - however, since cyanide is a natural waste product of protein metabolism in the body, we have endogenous enzymes that detoxify it - they can handle up to 1 mg/hour with no adverse effects to the body at all. It's not a persistent toxin. Also, the human digestive system has suboptimal pH for cyanide formation, meaning that of the amount of glycoside you do ingest, not much HCN is actually released. So, Cherry bark per se is not a problem. Browsing on wilted Cherry leaves will kill a cow or horse though - because there are much higher levels of cyanogenic glycosides in the leaves, and wilting is an enzymatic process that degrades them, releasing a large amount of HCN. Also, the animal is ingesting large quantities of plant material. This came to the attention of veterinary toxicologists during the depression in the Appalachians, when the stock sometimes had nothing else to eat."
Sweet Birch (Betula lenta)
Part used: Inner bark
Herbal energetics: Cool, Neutral (dry to moist)
Taste: Sweet, Astringent, Bitter, Aromatic
Harvest: Inner bark- Spring and fall
Herbal actions: Analgesic, Anti-inflammatory, Astringent, Diaphoretic, Diuretic, Febrifuge, Stimulant (mild)
Preparations: Tincture, Cordial/Elixir, Decoction, Oil, Liniment
Dosage: Folk Tincture- Start with ½-1 tsp 3x/day, up to 3-4 tsp/day, as-needed, for pain; Cordial/Elixir- Start with ½-1 tsp 3x/day, up to 3-4 tsp/day or more, as-needed, for pain; Infused Oil + Liniment- topically as needed.
Sweet Birch, young bark
It can be tapped for sap in the spring (the original origins of Birch Beer) and is ready to tap as maple season is winding down. If you’re harvesting twigs and branches during this time, which tends to be late March-early April in western Massachusetts, you’ll often see sap flowing from the tips of the branches you harvested and I highly recommend tasting it- it’s delicious! It looks like water but tastes sweet with just the slightest hint of wintergreen. This oozing of the sap is sometimes referred to as “bleeding” but, despite the illustrative name, it’s not considered harmful to the plant and it starts working to close-up those wounds more or less immediately. If you consider that Sugar Maples and Sweet Birch have been historically tapped for gallons of sap from individual trees with no harm done to the tree, it helps build some understanding around the low impact of harvesting a few branches. That being said, there are still a few ways you can minimize your impact when harvesting. One suggestion is to only harvest one branch per tree and cut up the small twigs for medicine and scrape the bark off the part ofbthe branch that has a larger diameter. Another option is to thin patches of young Sweet Birches growing close together by harvesting an entire young tree.
Also known as Black Birch or Cherry Birch, this is another favorite medicine in our home! I love it as a tincture and oil and vastly prefer making medicine with the fresh plant over dried.
It’s used to help with colds and flus, particularly when there is a fever present. Its diaphoretic action can help support the fever response in the body and help regulate the body’s temperature if the fever is getting too high, causing the body to break a sweat and cool down if taken as a hot tea. Alternately, for a low-grade fever, a hot cup of tea can raise the fever a bit, which can be desirable in some scenarios, especially in the beginning stages of a cold or flu when it is just coming on. Methyl Salicylate (methyl esters + salicylic acid), the compound which gives the bark its characteristic “wintergreen taste” is analgesic (pain-relieving) and anti-inflammatory, and can be helpful for headaches, body aches, stomachaches, earaches, rheumatism and arthritic conditions- basically any ache! Wonderful topically for this as a liniment or oil, or internally as a tincture. Strong astringent properties make it useful for diarrhea, and general lack of tone of tissue. Use as a gargle for mouth sores.
The plant is diuretic and cleansing and tonifying to the kidneys and bladder, which are important organs of elimination and detoxification. Not surprisingly, Birch is considered a spring tonic and blood cleansing, the sap especially so. It’s also a nice astringent and can be added to a mouthwash and adds a nice flavor as well. The leaves and inner bark can be made into a poultice for skin irritations such as eczema and psoriasis.
Sweet Birch, mature bark
Willow (Salix spp)
Pussy Willow (Salix discolor)
Part used: Inner bark
Herbal energetics: Cool, Dry
Taste: Bitter, Astringent
Harvest: Inner bark- Spring and fall
Herbal actions: Analgesic, Anti-inflammatory, Astringent, Febrifuge
Preparations: Tincture
Dosage: Folk tincture- Start with ½-1 tsp 3x/day, up to 3-4 tsp/day, as-needed
Although many texts list the medicinal species of Willow solely as White Willow (Salix alba), the truth is essentially all Willow species can be used medicinally, with varying strength of salicin (the active ingredient) and, ironically, White Willow is a species that tends to have low amounts of this constituent compared to other species. Locally, my favorite species to work with is Pussy Willow (Salix discolor), due to its abundance and easy identification and- be warned- Willows are notoriously hard to identify due to their tendency to hybridize. For me, as long as I know I have Willow and it has a strong Willow taste, I’m happy to use it for medicine.
Harvesting Willow is a cherished early spring ritual for me and it’s usually ready around Spring Equinox where I live. I like to wait until the silvery, furry flowers are budding to harvest as I find the medicine to be weaker before this stage in growth. I prefer it as a fresh plant tincture made in the folk method as a 1:2 at 40-50% alcohol and sometimes add 10% vegetable glycerin to help draw-out the astringent tannins.
Willow is a classic analgesic herb for headaches, rheumatism, and arthritis, and is the original source for aspirin (salicylic acid), which is now synthesized in labs. It’s also a great example of the safety of working with herbs in their whole form with all their constituents intact, over taking just one constituent, as every year there are thousands of hospitalizations due to over-use of NSAIDS and literally none from the use of Willow. From herbalist Dr. Sharol Marie Tilger, “The main active constituents are thought to be salicin and the salicyl glycosides that create a salicylic acid-like reaction in the body. The conversion of the herb into the usable form, saligenin, by gastric flora can take hours. For this reason Willow is not very effective for acute pain relief. The benefits are available over a more protracted period of time.”
Harvesting Willow on the spring equinox
Alder (Alnus spp)
Speckled Alder (Alnus incana), female catkins
Locally, our most abundant species is Speckled Alder (Alnus incana), which is the species I’m most familiar with as medicine. However, the consensus among herbalists is all species can be worked with medicinally, which included another northeast species, Smooth Alder (Alnus serrulata), and western species may be used medicinally as well. I tend to see it growing often alongside Willow, as it also likes having its feet wet, but it can easily be distinguished from Willow in the early spring by the presence of last year’s female seed cones pictured above.
A quote from Appalachian herbalist Tommie Bass: “If you got any kind of skin condition like eczema or scale, the [alder] tea will help your body heal itself. It cleanses the liver and you know, the liver controls everything else.”
Part used: Inner bark, leaves, catkins (male and female)
Herbal energetics: Cool, Dry
Taste: Bitter, Sweet, Aromatic, Astringent
Harvest: Inner bark- Spring and fall; Leaves- summer; Catkins- spring-summer
Herbal actions: Alterative, Anti-inflammatory, Astringent, Blood-Mover, Immune stimulant, Lymphatic
Preparations: Tincture, Decoction
Dosage: Folk tincture- ¼- ½ tsp 3x/day; Decoction- ¼ cup 3x/day
Although many parts of this small tree are considered medicinal, I’m the most familiar with the inner bark as medicine. I primarily work with it as a lymphatic and alterative and have found it to be quite effective and you can read more in the article about it by herbalist Kiva Rose below!
Willow (S. discolor) in early spring with Alder in the distance
Recipes
Sweet Birch Infused Oil
Sweet Birch twigs
Ingredients:
Fresh Sweet Birch bark or thin twigs
Oil (olive oil, sweet almond oil, sesame, grapeseed, coconut and jojoba are nice…DO NOT use soybean, canola or vegetable oil)
Directions:
Using a pocketknife, scrape the bark off the branches, always going away from the body. Or, using clippers, cut very thin twigs into very small pieces- the smaller the better. Loosely pack into a dry glass jar, leaving about an inch of head space in the jar. Next fill the jar completely with your oil of choice. Stir with a chop stick to remove all air bubbles and add more oil. Be sure that your final oil goes right up to the top of the jar, since the least possible exposure to air will minimize the chance of mold occurring. Place your oil on a towel as it may leak a bit as it infuses. Let it infuse about 1 week but no more shaking vigorously daily, which will also help inhibit mold growth. Then strain and you have your oil! When straining, avoid wringing it out too much and try not to get any sediment from the bottom of the infusing oil in your final oil, as again this can increase chances of your mold going bad. Basically, you want your final product to be a nice clear oil.
Use: Use topically as-needed for aches, pains, sprains, bruises or mix 50:50 with a Sweet Birch tincture to make a liniment
Willow & Sweet Birch Tincture
Ingredients:
Fresh Willow (Salix spp) or Sweet Birch (Betula lenta)- bark or very thin twigs (it’s fine to use a combo of both)
80-100 proof alcohol (vodka, brandy, rum, whiskey, gin)
Vegetable glycerin (optional)
Directions:
Using a pocketknife, scrape the bark off the branches, always going away from the body. Or, using clippers, cut very thin twigs into small pieces- the smaller the better. Gently pack the jar with the Willow or Sweet Birch and completely cover the herbs with your alcohol of choice. In folk medicine-making, such as this, vodka is traditionally used for tinctures because of its neutral flavor, but any alcohol that is 80-100 proof will do. To figure-out the alcohol percentage of an alcohol simply cut the proof number in half i.e. 80 proof alcohol is 40% alcohol. The remaining percentage of the alcohol is water 80 proof would mean the alcohol is actually 40% alcohol and 60% water. This is why we use 80-100 proof alcohols for tinctures since it’s a good middle-of-the road alcohol percentage for extracting a wide variety of plant constituents. For example, the water portion of the menstruum extracts the water-soluble minerals and vitamins of the plant and the alcohol portion extracts alcohol-soluble constituents such as alkaloids and essential oils. Once you’ve covered the plant material with the vodka (or alcohol you choose), add a splash of vegetable glycerin if using (you want it to be no more than 10% of the total menstruum) to help extract the tannins, give it a little stir to remove air bubbles, and then add a little more vodka to top it off. It’s ok if some plant material is floating on the surface; it won’t mold.
Let your tincture steep for 4 weeks minimum, shaking often. If you used the twig method I highly recommend giving it all a quick zoom in a blender, food processor or vitamix (herb along with the menstruum) and topping it off with more alcohol if-needed. It will be fine steeping in the alcohol for literally years because of the preservative properties of alcohol, however it will be ready in a month. Strain, label your medicine, and store in an amber glass jar or in any glass jar just out of direct sunlight, since this can degrade the medicinal properties. Tinctures, being mostly alcohol, have a virtually limitless shelf-life, making them an extremely practical way to preserve medicine!
And a note about chopping-up the Willow & Sweet Birch (and twigs in general):
The more surface area you expose by thoroughly chopping-up the plant material, the stronger tincture you’ll get. If you’re using the method of clipping thin twigs with clippers you generally can only get them about as small as the pieces pictured here in this photo. I often blend the entire contents of my tincture in a food processor, blender, or vitamix for a few seconds to break-up the twigs even more in order to get a stronger extract. This photo was taken before I took that extra step. This step is optional, but if you’d like to do it just pour the entire contents of the jar- twigs + alcohol into either a food processor, blender, or vitamix and give it a quick blend, enough to break it up just a bit more.
Dosage:
Start with ½-1 tsp 3x/day, up to 3-4 tsp/day, as-needed
Sweet Birch Wild Soda
Ingredients:
|12 tbsp fresh Sweet Birch thin twigs, finely chopped OR young bark
1⁄2 c Raw Honey
1⁄2 gallon un-chlorinated Water (spring/well water best)
Directions:
Put your herbs in a half-gallon mason jar and fill the jar with cold or room-temperature water. Next add the 1⁄2 cup raw honey and mix well. It’s ok if it doesn’t all dissolve right away if your honey is crystallized, as it will dissolve on its own in a day or two. Cover with cheesecloth or a bandana or thin cloth so it can still breathe but bugs can’t get in, like fruit flies. This method arguably creates a less medicinal brew that the hot water infusion method because you aren’t making a tea- the process mainly pulls-out volatile oils, which are of course medicinal, but things like minerals and alkaloids are likely not going to be in the finished wild soda. That being said, this is still my favorite method!
Now you wait for it to start fermenting! It’s important to stir it a few times a day and when it starts fizzing/bubbling when I stir it, I know it’s started fermenting. Time to initial fermentation can be a few days to over a week depending on ambient temperature. Once it starts bubbling, I usually let it ferment for another 24-48 hours, being sure to still stir it. It’s best to taste it a little bit every day (using a clean spoon each time) once it starts fermenting as a litmus test for when it’s time to strain- you want it to taste sparkling and effervescent before you strain it. When you feel it’s ready strain out the herbs, cap the jar, and let it sit out at room temperature to build carbonation. This timing can vary, but often 24-48 hrs is a good amount of time to build-up good carbonation. A nice trick is to put some of your strained wild soda in a small jar as a tester for the fizz factor as you can test it for fizziness without losing the carbonation in the big jar each time to test it. Store in the fridge where it will last for at least 3 months and likely longer- I just usually drink it by then!
References & Further Reading
Herbal Constituents: Foundations of Phytochemistry, by Lisa Ganora
The Essential Guide to Herbal Safety, by Kerry Bone and Simon Mills
Herbal Medicine From the Heart of the Earth, by Dr. Sharol Marie Tilger
Wild Cherry Monograph, By Jim McDonald
River Medicine: Alder’s Transformation of Lymph, Blood, and The Human Ecology, by Kiva Rose
Interested in learning more about our locally abundant medicinal herbs? Our From the Roots Up Bioregional Herbalism Apprenticeship & Class Series is now open for registration for 2023! Classes met entirely outside and in the field and the focus is on working with our locally abundant medicinals up close and personal. Participants will learn botany and plant ID, medicine-making, and sustainable wildcrafting practices, build their home apothecary, and more.
