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Useful and Medicinal Trees of the Eastern Woodlands 5

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Video Transcription

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okay here's two leaves one is a northern red oak on the left and the other is a white oak on the right both of these leaves were found probably within two feet of each other on my property oak is a very prolific tree and that's one of the reasons we're going to talk about it today okay so I'm walking around out here on my piece of property right now still got chainsaws in the background I apologize about that like I said they're cordon wood next property over from mine but this tree right here I've looked up and I've identified by its leaves by its bark that it's a white oak and I want the inner bark of this tree now I'm gonna look around the ground a little bit here too just to verify everything you know eyesight's not too good and I'm getting on in age but those look like white oak leaves to me from up high so I'm gonna look on the ground and I look around and I see you know there's quite a few sycamore leaves on the ground here but there's also a great many white oak leaves okay and these white oak leaves are all over the ground here right in front of this tree right around this tree and that's the majority of what's here so that tells me this is probably a white oak so what I want really on this thing is I want the inner bark of the three for medicinal use so I'm gonna pull out my axe and all I really wants a piece of this inner bark I don't want to tell the tourney so I'm just going to cut it here that's what I'm looking for that's a nice chunk of inner bark right there look at that that's a beautiful chunk of inner bark if I can get a couple pieces like that put on my backpack take them back to my camp this is what I would use for medicinal value pretty good piece right there good piece of test Deb it's still good

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these inner bark shavings right here are really really good stuff this is the good medicine right here okay so you got a pretty good pile of that inner bark from that white oak now we'll take that back to camp and make a decoction out of that we may combine it with something else I'll decide when I get there but we're gonna make up some medicine okay so we've got our white oak inner bark that we collected here now these fine shavings are still wet so I can't do this with these they have to be dried out but I can actually pulverize that into a powder with a makeshift mortar and pestle and Matthew wood talks about in his book of Herman wisdom you can actually snort this stuff up your nose and it will clear heavy mucousy sinus e-type infections where you're having problems breathing through your nose you're having a lot of sinus drainage into the back of your throat that will take care of that white oak bark has been used medicinally basically as a staple for herbalist for a long long period of time throughout the ages it has a lot of good properties like we said it's a stringent it's also very good because of that for diarrhea and even severe cases of dysentery and poisonings and things like that that are giving you diarrhea if you take it to coxinha this white oak bark which means you boil it down more than one time to reduce it down and really get the powers that are in the herb into that water and you drink it it will take care of things like that so you've been poisoned or you've ate some bad food or you've got some bad water you've got a case of you know an issue we're using the bathroom a lot then it's time to cure that and one thing that you can do if you think you've been poisoned as you can eat charcoal that will make you immediately vomit but it will line the stomach to kind of absorb some of those toxins and then you can back that up with a decoction of white oak to stringently kind of close things up and kind of alleviate that diarrhea now in a week tea or infusion which is what we're gonna make today we could take some of this fresh bark put it into an infusion strain it off drink it or gargle it and it's great for a sore throat so it's a topical antiseptic but it's also very good antiseptic internally around the mouth and throat any problems that you have with your mouth or throat internally swelling soreness soreness of the gums things like that if you have any lesions or cold sores inside your mouth all of those things can be taken with white oak bark and because oak is so prolific in eastern woodlands white oak is not hard to find which makes an ideal plant for this theories on useful plants of the Eastern woodlands okay so we're getting ready to make a infusion of white oak bark so that we could gargle it for sore throat situation we can also use it for a topical antiseptic but I always like to kind of include tips and tricks and things like that in these videos when I can so I'm gonna talk about today is we've only got one container okay a lot of times people don't have to metal containers they don't have a pot they don't have a nesting cup

this isn't even a fancy schmancy metal container this is a world war two wide mouth canteen the only modification I made to it is I have cut and chain at the bottom and I've put a split ring in it like you'd use for a key chain and the reason I did that was so that I could take that off of there and disconnect my lid when I wanted to to put the whole thing in the fire so all I have to do is take that split ring off take my lid off put in the fire now here's the thing now we can boil water with this no problem we can put it right on the fire boil our water with it it's not a problem if we're going to make an infusion we're gonna add a bunch of bark okay which is what we're gonna do right now I'm gonna put a bunch of bark in here now the question is gonna be once you've got this bark in here somehow you're gonna have to strain that bark before you gargle this liquid or you're gonna end up with a mouthful of bark we're going to talk about that in a few minutes

I'm also going to show you a quick and easy tip or trick to get your container off the fire when it's in the flame like that if you don't have a multi-tool to grab it with so stay with me we'll let this thing get going here and we'll make our infusion and then we'll get back to the tips and tricks okay so our infusion is pretty much done now I just need to pull off and let it sit for a minute maybe cover it with a rock but I have to get this container off the fire so here comes the tip or trick what I've got here is I've got a piece of Bank line okay it's the same kind of Bank line that I use for trapping in fact this is one of my snares and all I've done is I've taken one of my toggle triggers and I've tied it off-center with a clove hitch and you can see it's pointed on both ends and it's tied off-center just a little bit to move it over a little bit more just like that and now it's off-center okay now what I'm going to do is I'm going to take that string drop it down inside my container just like that pull it straight up and as long as this wider than the shoulders okay I can take my container off the fire set it to the side

okay

had to readjust the camera for you for a minute there I want to give make sure you guys can see this so now I've lifted up my container okay very easily like this okay that's coming out now because I tied that off-center all I need to do is take the long side of that look down inside the container take a long side push it over to this side I've got my long side over here now the short side will toggle straight up very similar to what you would do if you're making a Gorge type fishhook and I can set that back down there and pull it to the other side lift it up set it down again pull my short side toward me and it comes right out just gives me an easy way to lift my stuff in it on and off the fire without haven't used my bandanna or my multi-tool or mess around if I've only got the one container doesn't have a bail on it the very simple common man piece of equipment probably cost 10 or 15 bucks on army surplus store or a gun show with the cover

okay so again you just drop that down inside there off-center and pull it straight up to lift it off the fire set it back down take your long side and pull it against the side so the short side pops up and it comes right out roll it back up and you're trapping kit for later on when you've got to use it again and we'll let this infusion cool down and then I'll show you how you're going to strain it drink it at the same time okay guys so real quick-like in review we're talking about oak there's ninety species of oak in the u.s. most are red or white oak you can identify that by the color of the inner bark if you don't under the leaves the white oak is what we're looking for for medicinal purposes red oak for construction purposes also white oak is better food than red oak you don't have to leech the tannins out of it so much in the eight corners to use them we'll talk about that in just a second it's a stringent its antiseptic uses medicinally diarrhea stiff decoction will help with diarrhea sore throat we've made our infusion with the inner bark that we're going to use here in just a minute when I show you this other trick to alleviate a sore throat and topically it can be used also for antiseptic anywhere around the mouth and throat area it's good to gargle this stuff if you got a problem food white okay white oak acorns say that three times fast

white oak acorns why the fake horn blares get going that worked pretty good you can make mush ash cakes or flour out of that so now what we're going to do is we've got this medicinal tea that we need to drink okay and we are going to just take our cotton bandana or whatever we have on in this case a cotton scarf and put it over the top of it and drink it right through that and that's how we're going to strain it just like that now I don't have to worry about straining this off into a second container I only have one container I'll use the one container I got the best I can and strain it as I drink it gargle it swishing around my mouth drinking it's not gonna hurt anything either didn't really taste nasty it's not bad so this has been our segment on useful medicinal trees at Eastern woodlands white oak or oak in general I hope you enjoyed this video I enjoyed making it I thank you very much for your views I thank you very much for your support I'll be back with another video as soon as I can thank you

you

About the Author

wildernessoutfitters

wildernessoutfitters

From the lore of bushcraft to all things related to self-sustainability, the Pathfinder vision is to pass on the knowledge of outdoor self-reliance. Providing basic to advanced self-reliance training and survival gear, our goal is to offer both practical knowledge and survival gear that will stand the test of time. From emergency preparedness to sustainability, the Pathfinder way is to share and educate.

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