Trees used by Native Americans

A tree index for a classic of ethnobotany

Recently, I discovered a fascinating little book: Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region. Melvin Randolph Gilmore researched and compiled this report for the Smithsonian Institute in 1911-1912. It was published by the Washington Government Printing Office in 1919.

This great reference can be downloaded free of charge from Google Books or from the homepage of the Southwest School of Botannical Medicine (SWSBM). The download is under 2M in size, and the book is about 120 pages long. It is also available for purchase at various online bookstores.

The book describes how trees and other plants were used by Plains Indians for food, medicine, tools, weapons, shelter, rituals, apparel, personal care, etc. The body of information is far too complex to summarize here, but I'm sure I will be referring to it in the future when I write about individual tree species.

I grew up in the Sandhills of northern Nebraska. We didn't live in the Missouri River valley, but all our rivers flowed to the Missouri. I found this book particularly interesting because I know many of the prairie plants that are mentioned in the book.

Chokecherry leaf, blossom, & fruit

I downloaded and printed the report, punched the pages, and put them in a nice document binder. The version I downloaded from the SWSBM is not indexed, so I created my own little index of the trees that are mentioned, and included it at the end of the report.

My index appears at the end of this post. If you add Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region to your own nature library, perhaps the index will be useful to you, too. If the list seems short, remember that the prairies didn't have many trees!

Please note that some of these trees are not native to the Missouri River regions. However, the Indians used various parts of these trees when they could obtain them through travel or trade.

The first name for each entry in my index is a common name that I have assigned. It is not always the same as the common name cited by Gilmore. The second name (italicized) is the Latin name as it appears in the book. This may or may not be the same Latin name the plant goes by today.The third notation is the page on which that tree is mentioned.

Image credit: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / USDA NRCS. Wetland flora: Field office illustrated guide to plant species. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Index to the trees mentioned in Melvin Randolph Gilmore's Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region

Ash, green -- Fraxinus pennsylvanica -- 78
Ash, prickly -- Zanthoxylum americanum -- 64
Basswood, American -- Tilia americana -- 70
Birch, paper -- Betula papyrifera -- 33
Black walnut -- Juglans nigra -- 32
Boxelder -- Acer negundo -- 68
Chinaberry -- Melia azederach -- 64
Chokecherry --Padus nana (Prunus virginiana var. virginiana) -- 51
Chokecherry, western -- Prunus melanocarpa (Prunus virginiana var. melanocarpa) -- 52
Cottonwood -- Populus sargentii -- 29
Crab apple -- Malus ioensis -- 48
Dogwood, redossier -- Cornus stolonifera -- 77
Dogwood, roughleaf -- Cornus asperifolia (Cornus drummondii)-- 77
Elderberry, American black -- Sambucus canadensis -- 87
Elm, American -- Ulmus americana -- 34
Elm, rock -- Ulmus thomasii -- 34
Elm, slippery -- Ulmus fulva (Ulmus rubra) -- 34
Hackberry -- Celtis occidentalis -- 35
Hawthorne, fireberry -- Crataegus chrysocarpa -- 49
Hazelnut -- Corylus americana -- 32
Hickory, shagbark -- Hicoria ovata (Carya ovata) -- 32
Highbush cranberry -- Viburnum opulus -- 87
Kentucky coffeetree -- Gymnocladus dioica -- 52
Maple, silver -- Acer saccharinum -- 67
Maple, sugar -- Acer saccharum --67
Nannyberry (Black haw) -- Viburnum lentago -- 87
Oak, bur -- Quercus macrocarpa -- 33
Oak, red -- Quercus rubra -- 33
Osage orange -- Toxylon pomiferum (Maclura pomifera) -- 35
Pine, lodgepole -- Pinus murrayana -- 18
Redcedar -- Juniperus virginiana -- 18
Sumac, smooth -- Rhus glabra --66
Wild plum -- Prunus americana -- 49
Willow -- Salix sp. -- 31

Silver maples are blooming

Blossoms of Acer saccharinum

It's early spring in south central Kentucky, and the silver maples are blooming (a state that is called "inflorescence". Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) flowers are small, but they're noticeable because they don't have much visual competition this time of the year.

The blossoms in these photos would fall on the "spectacular" end of the silver maple blossom spectrum. This tree has large, brilliantly red flowers. In full bloom, it's a joy to the eyes in a landscape that is still wearing winter's drab colors.

The silver maple flowers in Steven J. Baskauf's photo on the Vanderbilt University website have a more subdued, more typical, reddish tone. Normal colors of silver maple flowers include shades of greenish-yellow.

I think the flowers in my photos are females. Flikr user Gavatron has a good photo of the male silver maple flower. Both male and female flowers may be borne on the same tree -- but not always. The U.S. Forest Service Sylvics Manual explains:

Four types of trees, with respect to sex expression, have been observed: all male flowers; all female flowers but with rudimentary pistils; mostly male with a few females; and mostly male with a few females and a scattering of hermaphroditic flowers. (Source)

Of course, the male flowers produce pollen, and that means that some people are having allergy problems, even though it's just mid-March.

The flowers are a food source for various songbirds, squirrels, and other wildlife. I was reminded of this last year after our big ice storm, when I watched a tiny chickadee land on a broken silver maple branch in our yard, peck the ice off a flower bud, and eat it.

Silver maples have their faults, but we won't go into all that today. Today, we'll just enjoy the blossoms.

Buckeye remedies for piles

Old folk remedies for hemorrhoids

The advertisement at right is from a turn-of-the-century newspaper. Dr. Tabler's Buckeye Pile Cure was a commercial version of an apparently well-known home remedy. Using Google's book search, I found several descriptions of homemade buckeye salves in books of old folk medicine.

The Old Herb Doctor, His Secrets and Treatments contains two typical folk recipes for buckeye ointments. The ointments were used for the treatment of piles (more often called hemorrhoids today). One lady wrote that an effective ointment could be made by soaking thin slices of the buckeye kernel for 24 hours in warm lard. Someone else suggested frying thinly-sliced buckeye kernels in any sort of fresh grease and saving the grease to use as a remedy for piles. This was how his grandmother had prepared a highly successful ointment.

The following recipe for a buckeye medicine to be taken internally comes from an 1874 medical book that was still being reprinted in 1913. This remedy was said by the author to be very successful in the treatment of hemorrhoids.

Take of the recent nuts, fully ripened, four ounces; bruise them thoroughly, and cover with alcohol 76 one pint; let it stand for two weeks ; strain and filter. Of this tincture add from one to two drachms to four ounces of water — the dose being one teaspoonful.

Source: Specific Diagnosis: A Study of Disease with Special Reference to the Administration of Remedies by John M. Scudder, M.D. p. 59

Buckeye was considered so effective against piles that merely carrying a buckeye in your pocket would ward them off. Here is a typical endorsement of the practice:

Cure for the Piles.—Carrying the common buckeye in the pantaloons' pocket, will cure the piles or any other inflammation about the anus. I can not give a reason for it, but it is nevertheless certain—try it.

Source: 1843 American Agriculturist

I'm just reporting these remedies, not recommending them. If you want to try one of them, please just put a buckeye in your pocket. I'm quite familiar with people carrying buckeyes to prevent rheumatism. I guess there's no way to know all the maladies a buckeye in the pocket might prevent. That probably explains why some people carry them simply for good luck.

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The common buckeye of Kentucky and much of the eastern U.S. is Aesculus glabra, the Ohio buckeye.