As we gather for Thanksgiving, it is a good reminder that Native Americans have always been in touch with the earth and its dynamics. Essentially, they were America's first ethnobotanists, studying the uses of plants and enabling their survival.
When tribes discovered a new plant in their travels, it was subject to scrutiny and experimentation. According to the National Park Service, they employed 185 plant species for medicine, food, ceremonial and constructive use. Though they are not recommended for use today, it’s fascinating to discover how indigenous people used these plants.
Herbaceous plants utilized by Native Americans include broadleaf cattail (Typha latifolia), stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida), common yarrow (Achillea millefolium), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), and purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea).
Cattails are sometimes called the supermarket of the swamp due to their many applications. The heads and seeds are edible, and both the nutritional starchy root and pollen served as medicinal herbs. The leaves and stalks were woven into mats and baskets. Children savored the rolled sweet sap as candy. Simple dolls and small floating toy ducks were made by folding a few leaves from the cattail stalk. When fully ripe, cattails “explode,” producing a seed attached to a soft fluff that disperses through the air. This cottony fluff was used to line moccasins for warmth or added to papoose boards to act as an absorbent diaper.
Goldenrod, the ubiquitous yellow flower that dots Pennsylvania's fall landscape, produces a yellow dye. Native Americans also sprinkled its powdered leaves on horse's sores for relief.
The young tops of yarrow were eaten as a salad, and its mashed roots were commonly applied as a dressing to act as an anesthetic. Once the anesthetic had taken effect, wounds could be opened and cleansed. The Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has verified the efficacy of this use.
The highly nutritious seeds of the sunflower were ground into meal to make gruel and cake. Roasted seeds were crushed and made into a beverage similar to coffee. Dyes were extracted from the seeds, and sunflower heads were boiled for their oil and used as a hair tonic.
Purple coneflower was prized by western Native Americans as a treatment for snake bites, and the plant juice was used to sooth burns. The powdered root was used as topical relief for toothaches.
Pennsylvania's state tree, the Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), boasts a variety of uses. Its bark served as an astringent or pain-reliever, while those suffering rheumatism utilized its oil as a liniment. Its gum, or sap, became a strengthening plaster for use in setting bones. Early pioneers continued this use. Tea was brewed by using hemlock needles, and loggers continued to enjoy this beverage. Unfortunately, the Eastern hemlock is undergoing an attack from a non-native insect called the hemlock wooly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), which can eventually destroy the tree unless there is successful intervention.
Both white and weeping willow trees are early introduced species. They are one of the first trees to bud in the spring and are late to lose their foliage in Western Pennsylvania. They are held in esteem for their medicinal uses. Heavy bleeding of wounds or nosebleeds were staunched with its mashed leaves, and a strong tea made from the inner bark was potent in curing “white man's” diseases gonorrhea and syphilis. Native Americans used willow extract as a pain reliever. Salicylic acid, found in the white willow's inner bark, is an active ingredient in aspirin.
Now is a fitting time to give thanks for plants' functionality, versatility and beauty, a notion long embraced by Native Americans.
Celeste Biordi Janosko is a Penn State Master Gardener whose interest in plants and the environment was fostered by Beulah Frey, a longtime environmental educator in the Fox Chapel School District. Master Gardeners are a volunteer program supporting the outreach mission of Penn State Extension, which provides research-based information on sustainable horticulture and environmental stewardship. Information: alleghenymg@psu.edu or 412-482-3476.
First Published: November 19, 2021, 11:00 a.m.
