Violet

 

            Though small and unpretentious, the violet offers rich benefits to us.  Used internally as a tea, it is often used externally as a poultice.  It is useful against tumors, gout, colds, sore throats, coughs, sores, ulcers, bronchitis and breathing problems, headaches and sinus congestion.  Combined with other herbs in an ointment, it is spread on the skin where there are growths, rashes, and maladies of this sort.  The whole plant may be used in any preparation.  A heaping teaspoonful in boiling water makes a tea to be sipped a spoonful at a time. (Kloss)

            Tenney says that violet is so valuable as a restorative on account of the fact that it has the capacity to reach places in the body where only the blood and lymphatic fluids penetrate.  Truly the blood and lymph are the healers of the body, as these carry the nutrients to the cells and remove the waste products from then. (Tenney)

            Pliney from Roman times recommended a garland of the flowers be placed around the head for headache or hangover.  Dioscorides prescribed it for stomach or digestive complaints.  Extracting and applying the juice to boils, ulcers, impetigo, and other skin eruptions.  A medicine for “consumption” (tuberculosis in England was to make a syrup of violets on account of its properties as an expectorant (induces coughing up of infectious material).  Unfortunately, sugar was used in the preparation of the syrup.  Now we understand that sugar lowers the immune  capacity of the body.  According to Coon,  “the taste of violet flowers alone would have been sufficiently palatable.  What we are suggesting is a thick tea made of many violet flowers.  If we try it, maybe we’ll like it!”

 

Compiled by F.C. English

Resources:

Coon, Nelson, Using Plants for Healing

Kloss, Jethro, Back To Eden

Lust, John, The Herb Book

Rodale Press Book Division, The Rodale Herb Book

Tenney, Louise, Today’s Herbal Health

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plant Dyes

 

            Before the introduction of aniline dyes, plants were the source of many of the colors used in dying clothing.  You can have fun using natural dyes for a family or classroom activity with materials from your own yard.  The Cultivator’s Club has established a wonderful collection of books on native plants at the Kankakee Library for reference; using the Internet is also an excellent resource to search out information on plants for natural dyes. 

            With various plant materials, books on plants, and jars to hold dyes, you can discover the subtle beauty of plant dyes for coloring cloth or to create paintings. Many of the following plants are found in our area.

            Make use of the collecting time to teach/practice conservation practices in collecting.  The materials collected should not noticeably change the environment of the area in which they were found.  Never collect from preserves and protected areas; almost all of these can be found in urban yards, especially if you are doing some native plantings.

            If not, ask a neighbor for some materials, or plan a native garden at the school. Illinois has several programs to assist schools in establishing “teaching gardens’ of native plants.

            Collecting can be done in such a way as to leave an area in better shape than before we collected. Thoughtful collecting can  thin an area to enhance growth of the surrounding plants.  Always take only a little of what is there, and select that which is damaged or overcrowded, leaving plenty of growth for the next season.  Select with a spirit of thankfulness and an eye for leaving the site in better health than before you harvested. 

            It is important to always remind young people to never taste wild plants as many are inedible and some are very toxic.  Never snack on wild plants unless very knowledgeable. Not everything should be taken, and not everything is edible. Just because something is natural doesn’t mean it is suitable for humans. Remember that the poisons concocted by the ancients were all from natural substances!

 

Blue-violet

   Cherry root

Purple

   Elderberries

   Raspberries

Reddish-purple

   Pokeweed berries (not safe to eat!)

 

Red-orange

   Choke cherry or wild plum

   Spruce cones

   Sumac berries (not the famous “poison sumac”, nevertheless be sure of      your plant!)

   Alder

   Pokeberry

   Sassafras

Red

   Red Cedar

   Red Osier Dogwood

Red-pink

   Dandelion root

   Cherries

   Strawberries

   Red raspberries

   Cardinal flowers (cultivated only please don’t be taking from the wild!)                   

   Sorrel roots & bark

Violet

   Grapes (wild or Concord)

 

Blue

   Blueberries (boiled)

 

Dark brown

   Walnut husks (boiled)                                                                                                                                               

 

Yellow

   Yarrow

   Willow leaves

   Goldenrod (boiled)

   Ash (inner bark)

   Onion skin

   Tulip trees’ leaves

   Ragweed

   Burdock

   Osage orange roots and bark

                        (boiled)

   Sunflower

   Yellow cone flower petals, mixed with      decayed oak bark or cattail root

   Yellow or curled dock root

   Lichen (Usnea barbata

   Fox moss (Evernia vulpina

Rose tan

   Birch bark

   Willow bark

   Sassafras roots

Green

   Plantain leaves and root (boiled)

   Nettle (roots, stalk, leaves)

   Lily of the Valley leaves

Salmon

   Cherry bark

Black

   Walnut husks, bark, roots

   Sumac leaves

   Silver maple: twigs, bark and iron stained          clay mixture mixed with tallow and roasted in a pot

   Sunflower: black seeds

           

            The vibrant and varied colors of natural plant dyes are still highly desirable today.  The artisans’ area of the annual Theatiki Reenactment at Davis Creek area of the Kankakee River State Park often has exhibits of handspun wool dyed with natural plant materials, which command a very premium price!  Weavers and fabric artists who desire natural dyes for their quality of color will either make their own or order from crafters whose specialty is naturally dyed yarns. Some Native Americans artists who work in traditional quill design still use only natural dyes. 

            The recipes for traditional natural dyes are known to a very few.  Simply knowing the ingredients is not enough, as many dye recipes required the specifics of times and temperatures or the addition of an ingredient at just the right moment to produce a color.

             Nevertheless, experimenting with these materials is a great deal of fun, even if your results are inconsistent or unexpected.  If you are serious about exploring the creation of these beautiful colors, be sure to keep a journal of your efforts!

            Mordant may be added to keep dyes from fading,  to brighten, deepen or to dull a color. Mordant can be used before during or after the dye bath, depending on the effect desired.  Acidic mordants like currants, gooseberries  or vinegar can help make colors more permanent.  Other mordants  are iron oxides (ground hematite), alum and hardwood or cedar bark ashes.  Ashes are high in lye and very caustic on contact with skin and so are not suitable for projects for children.

            Modern mordants include some that are toxic and need to be used only with great care. Some  websites for more info on native dyes and indigenous technologies:

 

http://www.NativeTech.com

 

http://askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/Interdisciplinary/INT0056.html

 

http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/dyeplants/ 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

Taking Care of Our Forests: Study on Fire Management

 

            SANTA FE, New Mexico, June 11, 2003 (ENS) - There is little scientific information to guide forest managers when thinning forests to reduce wildlife risk, according to a new study by the Southwest Community Forestry Research Center in Santa Fe. The Southwest center is one of four regional stations of the National Community Forestry Center.
            "Modifying Wildfire Behavior - the Effectiveness of Fuel Treatments" looked at more than 250 of the most current scientific studies that evaluate three types of fuel treatment in relation to fire behavior in western forests - prescribed fire, mechanical thinning, and a combination of thinning and burning.
            The authors surveyed the literature to evaluate recent suggestions by policy makers that commercial logging can be used to treat dense forest fuels.
            "Although the assertion is frequently made that reducing tree density can reduce wildfire hazard, the scientific literature provides tenuous support for this hypothesis," the study concludes.
            "This review indicates that the specifics of how prescriptions are to be carried out and the effectiveness of these treatments in changing wildfire behavior are not supported by a significant consensus of scientific research at this point in time," the study states.
            Henry Carey, one of the authors of the study, said, "The literature shows that factors other than tree density, such as surface vegetation and the distance from the ground to the tree crown, play a profound role in the spread of fire."
            The study found substantial evidence that supports the effectiveness of prescribed fire as a fuel treatment. "The specifics of how thinning treatments are to be used and their relative effectiveness in changing wildfire behavior are not supported by a significant consensus of scientific research at this point in time," Carey said.
            The study also surveyed the scientific literature to evaluate recent suggestions by policy makers that commercial logging can be used to treat forest fuels.
            "We found that the proposal that commercial logging can reduce the incidence of canopy fire was untested in the scientific literature," said Carey. "Commercial logging, with its focus on large diameter trees, does not remove the ladder fuels that contribute to fire spread."
            The report suggested more systematic field research to provide a sound scientific basis for evaluating and designing fuel reduction treatments and that the idea that mechanical thinning, or a combination of thinning and prescribed fire, reduces the incidence of catastrophic fire should be viewed as a working hypothesis.
            In 2000, the United States embarked on an emergency $1.6 billion program to reduce fuels on millions of acres, the report states, and the Western Governors Association calls for sustaining this level of investment over the next 10 years. The study calls for a comparable investment in primary and applied research to provide a credible scientific basis for the plan.
           

Read the report at: http://www.theforesttrust.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The faces of our future generations are
looking up to us from the earth and we
step with great care not to disturb our
grandchildren."
                -Traditional Circle of Elders

The leaves when they are finished with their
life on the trees, will return to the Earth. The
leaves that return to the Earth are the future
trees. So inside the Mother Earth are the future

forests. The human, when finished with
its life on the Earth, will return to the Earth.
So in the Earth are our future grandchildren.
Knowing this, we should be respectful of the
place where our future generations live. Only
take from the Earth what you need. Every
time you pick a plant or Medicine, leave an
offering and leave a prayer. Be respectful and
walk in a sacred way.

Great Spirit,
teach me to
respect the
place of future
generations.

By:  Don Coyhis

 

 

Autumnal Tune-Up

 

Warm Summer breezes will soon give way,

To cooler ones with less time to play-

 

Halloween, harvest, and hay racks

Bon-fires, birding, and beaver tracks-

 

Take a walk, hike, or bike-

“Nothing beats the fall”, yet shorter days .... yikes!

                        A.J. Ciaccio-Jarvis

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ .......... The sun is at home on the plains.  Precisely there does it have the certain character of a god.”

                   -- N. Scott Momaday

 

 

A Good Book on Tracking ...

 

          A snippet from “ Bird Tracks & Sign,”

             -  by Mark Elbrock with Eleanor Marks

 

          A practical introductory method to the identification of bird tracks is to follow a three-step process I call the "3 perspectives": First, look at the ecology of the environment.  Next, look at the track pattern.  Then, look at the track.  When you find a track in the field, stop, step back, and first take in the big picture, studying the environment surrounding the track.

 

            Determine the ecological framework - lowland or upland forest, wetland, grassland, or other type of ecosystem.  Then approach the tracks themselves. Try to determine the pattern of a small group of tracks, which offers much

information: A bird that frequents the ground tends to walk, whereas strong perching birds tend to hop.  Now narrow your focus further, studying just one track.  Don't try to label the track with a species name.  Rather, carefully examine the track, and acknowledge what it's sharing with you.  A bird track tells you a great deal about the ecology of the bird, giving a

lot of clues as to how it exists, which aids in identification of the species. 

 

            Studying the tracks answers many questions: How much time does this bird spend on the ground?  How comfortable is it on the ground?  It's all there: A bird that spends most of its time perches has very narrow tracks, whereas a regular ground feeder has wide tracks.  And don't just look.  Listen, feel, taste, smell - engage your senses as you constantly shift your focus from the ecosystem to the track pattern to an individual track and then back to the big picture again.

 

            ...This book has tracking info well beyond the scope of being just about

birds, I highly recommend it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How katydids love to tell,

On a clumsy man's feet,

As the leathery souls,

And rocky sands both meet,                                                                                               

 

And ten thousand stars,

Now reveal their light,

In the cool pitch blackness,

Of a moonless night,

 

As soft clean sands,

Below my feet are felt,

With eyes to the sky,

My rough knees knelt,

 

And reaching towards the creator,

I touched the stars,

Though a tiny creature,

Pulled them towards my heart,

 

And so pure for this moment,

A clear spirit inside,

Giving thanks in a prayer,

On this moonless night.

 

 

                  --- Nighthawk

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Why should we all use our creative power?  Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money."

             - Brenda Ueland