Making Tree Medicine
by Anna Fraser
re-printed with permission
Gathering Tree Medicine
As a general rule, gather/pick all your medicinal material when it is at the peak of its growth. Leaves, flowers and berries which are picked when they are still wet with dew or rain will turn moldy more easily. Therefore choose a dry day ideally, before the sun is too hot and has evaporated any oils or fragrances which may be present, but after the dew has evaporated. You can choose to pick medicines for drying on the waning moon.
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Leaves: Young leaves, or even newly opened buds possess concentrated medicinal powers. Pick your leaves always early in the season before they become insect eaten or tired looking.
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Flowers: Pick flowers when they have first opened and before they have been much visited by bees and other pollinated insects.
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Berries and Seed: Leave to sun-ripen as much as possible. Keep a close watch and gather before they are dispersed by the wind, are eaten by birds or fall off the tree naturally.
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Roots: In the few cases where the roots are required as medicine, it is a good idea to look for a place where there is an abundance of young trees, which won't all be able to grow to maturity and whose roots are still relatively shallow. Dig up the roots from a tree, which may need thinning out anyway. If there is no such a tree available, only take a small amount, so the tree will be able to recover easily. Roots gathering is best done early in the spring or after the plants sheds its leaves, i.e. before the sap has risen or after it has descended again. Roots are more tender when the moon is waxing.
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Bark: The outer bark is the protective skin of the tree. Just below that is the inner bark which carries water and minerals upwards to the branches and leaves and carbohydrates, made by photosynthesis in the leaves, downwards to feed the tree. Therefore, the inner bark does for a tree what our blood circulation does for us. So, we must never take bark from the tree trunk as it can kill the tree. Even if you don't take the bark from all around, the wounds are very injurious to the tree and will make it vulnerable to infection by fungi or other organisms.
The best way to gather bark is from 2-3 year old branches, which are carefully pruned from the tree. This is best done in early spring or autumn.
Caution: Don't pick medicinal material from trees growing along busy roads or other polluted places, as the tree will be covered in pollutants and may also have absorbed heavy metals, etc. Also avoid trees which have been sprayed with pesticides.
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