Symplocos, Sweet Leaf
Four varieties of Symplocos have been found useful in Herbal Medicine: Symplocos microcalyx, Symplocos paniculata - Asiatic Sweetleaf, Symplocos sumuntiia, Symplocos tinctoria - Sweet Leaf
Native to my region is Symplocos tinctoria (Sweetleaf). Of Sweetleaf, Plants for A Future merely states, “The bitter, aromatic roots have been used as a tonic. A decoction of the scraped roots has been used in the treatment of fevers.”
Fourteen varieties of Tamarisk have been found useful in Herbal Medicine: Myricaria elegans, Myricaria germanica, Myricaria squamosa, Reaumuria hypericoides, Tamarix Africana, Tamarix anglica - English Tree, Tamarix aphylla - Athel Tamarisk, Tamarix canariensis, Tamarix gallica - Manna Plant, Tamarix hispida - Kashgar Tree, Tamarix chinensis - Chinese Tamarisk, Tamarix juniperina, Tamarix parviflora - Small-Flowered Tamarisk, Tamarix ramosissima
The number of Tamarisk trees naturalized in my region surprised me: Tamarix canariensis (Canary Island Tamarisk), Tamarix chinensis (Chinese Tamarisk), Tamarix gallica (French Tamarisk), Tamarix parviflora (Smallflower Tamarisk), Tamarix ramosissima (Saltcedar)
Tamarisk was widely used in the ancient world, and continued to be popular well into the middle ages, as it includes the “Myrica Gale” that was a popular and highly intoxicating ingredient in beer before Saint Hildegard popularized hops as the primary bittering agent.
Dioscorides wrote of Tamarisk:
Myrica or myrris is a well-known tree, growing in marshy grounds and standing waters, with a fruit as a flower, of a mossy consistency. Some of it is planted in gardens in Egypt — in other things like the wild, but it bears fruit like a gall [excrescence on oak trees], unequally astringent to the taste, and used instead of galls in medicines for the mouth, eyes and spitting of blood. It is given in drink to women troubled with colic, those who have a flowing-forth from the vulva or sickness of the head, and for those bitten by phalangii [harvest spiders]. Applied as a poultice it stops oedema. The bark does the same things, as well as the fruit. A decoction of the leaves (taken as a drink with wine) melts the spleen, and gargled in the mouth it helps toothache. For hip baths it is good for women troubled with a discharge of fluids from the vulva, and a heated rub of it is good for those with lice and nits. Ash from the wood (applied) stops flows from the uterus. There are some who make cups from the wood which they use for those troubled with spleen (as though the drink given them from such cups should do them good).
Gerard wrote of French Tamarisk and German Tamarisk:
A. Tamarisk hath a cleansing and cutting faculty with a manifest drying; it is also somewhat astringent or binding, and by reason of these qualities it is very good for an hard spleen, being boiled with vinegar or wine, either the root or leaves, or tender branches, as Galen writeth.
B. Moreover Dioscorides teacheth, that the decotion of the leaves made with wine, doth waste the spleen, and that the same is good against the toothache, if the mouth be washed therewith: that it bringeth down the menses, if the patient sit therein; that it killeth lice and nits, if the parts be bathed therewith.
C. The ashes of burnt Tamarisk hath a drying faculty, and greatly scouring withal, and a little binding.
D. The flowers and downy seed of the greater Tamarisk doth greatly bind, infomuch as it cometh very near to the gall named galla omphacitis, but that the roughness of taste is more evident in the gall; the which flowers are of an unequal temperature, for there is joined to the nature thereof a great thinness of parts, and cleansing faculty, which the gall hath not, as Galen writeth.
These flowers we fitly use (saith Dioscorides) instead of gall, in medicines for the eyes and mouth.
F. It is good to stanch blood, and to stay the lask and women's whites, it helpeth the yellow jaundice, and also cureth those that are bit of the venomous spider called Phalangium; the bark serveth for the same purposes.
G. The leaves and wood of Tamarisk have great power and virtue against the hardness and stopping of the spleen, especially the leaves being boiled in water, and the decoction drunk, or else infused in a small vessel of ale or beer, and continually drunk: and if it tbe drunk forth of a cup or dish made of the wood or timber of Tamarisk, is of greater efficacy.
Culpepper wrote:
Government and virtues. A gallant Saturnine herb it is. The root, leaves, young branches, or bark boiled in wine, and drank, stays the bleeding of the hæmorrhodical veins, the spitting of blood, the too abounding of women's courses, the jaundice, the cholic, and the biting of all venomous serpents, except the asp; and outwardly applied, is very powerful against the hardness of the spleen, and the tooth-ache, pains in the ears, red and watering eyes. The decoction, with some honey put thereto, is good to stay gangrenes and fretting ulcers, and to wash those that are subject to nits and lice. Alpinus and Veslingius affirm, That the Egyptians do with good success use the wood of it to cure the French disease, as others do with lignum vitæ or guiacum; and give it also to those who have the leprosy, scabs, ulcers, or the like. Its ashes doth quickly heal blisters raised by burnings or scaldings. It helps the dropsy, arising from the hardness of the spleen, and therefore to drink out of cups made of the wood is good for splenetic persons. It is also helpful for melancholy, and the black jaundice that arise thereof. The ancients believed that swine which fed out of a trough made of this wood, would have no milk. The bark is sometimes used for the rickets in children.
An Irish Herbal states:
The wood, bark and leaves are very good for all disorders of the spleen. Drinking a decoction opens obstructions and is good for coughs and catarrh
This article is an excerpt from The Medicinal Trees of the American South, An Herbalist's Guide: by Judson Carroll
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Author: Judson Carroll. Judson Carroll is an Herbalist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
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The information on this site is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing on this site has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I am not a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and their is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm just a guy who studies herbs. I am not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write is accurate or true! I can tell you what herbs have "traditionally been used for." I can tell you my own experience and if I believe an herb helped me. I cannot, nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use any herb I, or anyone else, mentions you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, sensitivity or underlying condition that no one else shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to read my blog you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices and not to blame me for anything, ever.
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