Sixty varieties of Blueberry have documented use in Herbal Medicine. There is no need to list them all. Blueberries are all medicinal and interchangeable in their use.
Native to my region are: Vaccinium caesariense (New Jersey Highbush Blueberry), Vaccinium corymbosum (Smooth Highbush Blueberry), Vaccinium crassifolium (Creeping Blueberry), Vaccinium elliottii (Elliott's Blueberry), Vaccinium erythrocarpum (Bearberry, Highbush Cranberry, Southern Mountain Cranberry), Vaccinium formosum (Southern Highbush Blueberry), Vaccinium fuscatum (Black Highbush Blueberry), Vaccinium hirsutum (Hairy Blueberry), Vaccinium macrocarpon (Cranberry), Vaccinium myrtilloides (Velvetleaf Blueberry), Vaccinium pallidum (Hillside Blueberry), Vaccinium simulatum (Mountain Highbush Blueberry), Vaccinium stamineum (Deerberry), Vaccinium tenellum (Small Black Blueberry) and Vaccinium virgatum (Swamp Blueberry, Smallflower Blueberry).
Much like the Blackberries and Raspberries we already discussed, Blueberries are widespread throughout the southeast. The wild berries are generally smaller than cultivated versions, but have much more flavor and are stronger medicinally. My favorite are the tiny “buckshot” blueberries that grow on the tops of our higher mountains, straight out of bare rock. Their flavor is tart and uniquely bold and I usually share them only with chipmunks and Eagles as few people or larger animals wander the steep cliffs. But, even in the coastal swamps, where my mother’s family settled before America was a nation, are delicious blueberries - the elliotti variety. Many others have been introduced. Blueberry farming is a big part of our agriculture.
Resources of The Southern Fields and Forests tells us:
(The Bilberry Tribe.)
Bark and leaves are astringent, slightly tonic and stimulating
AMERICAN CRANBERRY, (Vaccinium macrocarpon, Ait. Oxycoccos.) Grows in swamps of North Carolina and northward.
The cranberry, useful for their ascesccnt, cooling properties, for making pies, etc., are now exported to Europe, and they are said to bring eight dollars a bushel in the London market, as they are easily transported without suffering from the voyage. They are cultivated on boggy or swampy land, sand being thrown over it to kill the grass. There is a communication in the Patent Office Reports, 1857, on the mode of cultivation of
the plant. Cranberries may be preserved perfect for several years merely by drying them a little in the sun, and then putting them up closely in clean bottles. They also keep well in fresh water. The red-fruited variety yields a juice which has been employed to stain paper or linen purple.
FARCLW-BEERY; SPARKLEBERRY, (Vaccinnm arhoreum, Marsh.) Grows in damp soils; diffused; collected in St. John's; vicinity of Charleston ; N. C. Fl. May.
Ell. Bot. Med. Notes, i, 496 ; Griffith Med. Bot. 431. The bark of the root is very stringent, and is employed in diarrhoea and bowel complaints. The leaves also are astringent, and a decoction, as tea, is given in diarrhoea and dysentery, and as a wash
in sore mouth ; the fruit is more palatable and equally as efficacious. The bark is also used for tanning. The root and bark are very much used as an astringent in Sumter District, S. C, given in the form of tea to children affected with diarrhoea from
teething, simply because it contains tannin, I suppose, like the chinquapin, oak bark, etc. It is very much relied upon. The root is sometimes stewed in milk and given the same way. Most of the species possess qualities similar to this one. Some of those at the South bear fruit which are very pleasant to the taste, and commonly known as huckleberries. I regard the wood as uncommonly hard and close.
A cordial is made from "Whirtleberries," says a writer, 1863; "to one quart of berries add half a pint of water, boil until tender and strain. To one quart of juice add half a pint of brandy. It must be well sweetened with loaf sugar."
King’s American Dispensatory of 1898 states:
These plants are common to the northern states, growing in woods and pastures, flowering in May and June, and ripening their fruit in August. The fruit, or berries, together with the bark of the root, are the parts used. They yield their virtues to water. To our knowledge, no analysis has yet been made of them. The fruit of the related European plant, Vaccinium myrtillus, Linné, contains malic and citric acids, sugar, pectin, coloring matter, iron-bluing tannin, ericolin and kinic acid (see Dragendorff's Heilpflanzen, 1898; and Wittstein's Pharmacognosie, 1882).
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Diuretic and astringent. The fruit is very useful, eaten alone, with milk or sugar, in scurvy, dysentery, and derangements of the urinary organs. The berries and roots, bruised and steeped in gin, form an excellent diuretic, which has proved of much benefit in dropsy and gravel. A decoction of the leaves or bark of the root is astringent, and may be used in diarrhoea, or as a local application to ulcers, leucorrhoea, and ulcerations of the mouth and throat.
Related Species.—The different varieties of whortleberry possess similar properties, as the Gaylussacia dumosa, Torrey and Gray (Vaccinium dumosum), or Bush whortleberry; V. corymbosum, Linné, or Giant whortleberry; V. Pennsylvanicum, Lamarck, Common low blueberry, or Black-blue whortleberry; V. Vitis-Idaea, Linné, Cowberry or Bilberry, and several others. The last-named contains a bitter principle, vacciniin, identical with arbutin (Edo Claassen; see under Uva Ursi). Several species are found growing in the mountainous regions of some of the southern states. Torrey and Gray have removed the V. frondosa, V. resinosum, and V. dumosum. from the genus Vaccinium, and placed them in a new one called Gaylussacia, in honor of the distinguished chemist, Gay-Lussac. Both the berries and root-bark of V. arboreum, Michaux, or Farkleberry, are very astringent, more so than the other varieties above named, and may be used in all cases where this class of agents is indicated, as in diarrhoea, chronic dysentery, etc., taken internally; and the infusion will be found valuable as a local application in sore throat, aphthous ulcerations, some forms of chronic ophthalmia, leucorrhoea, etc. The leaves of Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea, and of Vaccinium uliginosum, Linné, have been confounded with those of Uva ursi.
Vaccinium macrocarpon, Aiton (Oxycoccus macrocarpus), Cranberry.—This well-known fruit is frequently applied in domestic practice to inflammatory swellings, such as erysipelas. Edo Claassen (Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1886, p. 324) finds in the fruit a bitter, non-crystallizable glucosid, which he names oxycoccin, resembling arbutin. Cranberries are a source of citric acid; L. W. Moody (ibid., 1878, p. 567) found 2.27 per cent. Cranberries in poultice have proved useful in erysipelatous inflammations, tonsilitis, scarlatinal sore throat, and swelling of the cervical glands, as well as in indolent and malignant ulcers. A split cranberry, held in position by a daub of flour or starch-paste, will quickly relieve the pain and inflammation attending boils upon the tip of the nose. This procedure, recently recommended by a distinguished physician, has given good results in our hands.
Peterson Field Guides Eastern and Central Medicinal Plants states:
American Indians used leaf tea as a “blood purifier”; also used for colic labor pains, and as a tonic after misscarriage, fumes of burning dried flowers were inhaled for madness.
This article is an excerpt from
Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast An Herbalist's Guide
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Disclaimer
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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