Balm of Gilead, Black Cottonwood Buds
Populus trichocarpa,. Known for their amazing aroma and remarkable healing qualities. Cottonwood buds are one of my favorite winter harvests. Winter storms break branches and sometimes knock over whole trees, making picking these fallen gifts a very ethical harvest. You can harvest the buds and twigs from mid-November, if you don’t mind dealing with the leaves, to early march up to two weeks after the Indian plum starts blooming. The sticky resinous buds mark your hands and make for a wonderfully fragrant harvest.
This resin is the source of potent medicine that many use for making salves and balms and even natural deodorant. The salicylic acid, which is a precursor to aspirin, act as a topical anti-inflammatory for pain relief, inflammation and speeding the healing of wounds and burns to name a few. The aromatic resins have antimicrobial and vasodilating properties that also stimulate cellular regeneration, and internally these warming and stimulating resins help expel hard stuck mucus in unproductive coughs. Used as a tincture, it is very effective for chest colds and with its antimicrobial actions it helps prevent secondary often more serious infections. I personally suck on the buds like a cough drop when I feel a mild tickle in the back of my throat. It has numbing qualities and tastes much like propolis, or does propolis taste like Cottonwood resin? Honey bees collect Cottonwood resin in early spring and sap from other trees to make propolis.
Cottonwoods grow along water ways and riparian ecosystems, helping to stabilize river banks and shade the water to help stop evaporation. They create tons and tons of biomass to build soils and mulch the forest floor. I actually have found newly fallen twigs quickly taking root in the fallen leaves its mother trees dropped the fall before. Cottonwood are much like willow in that you can just push live twigs and sticks directly in to moist ground and they will take root and grow a whole new tree. This is one of its doctrine of signatures, it quickly regrows, repairs and stabilizes ecosystems much like it promotes cellular regeneration and healing in our human ecosystems.
Many people are annoyed with its flying snow like fluffy seeds each spring, but for me it is a welcomed sign, heralding the growing season and indicating that the Arnica flowers are ready to harvest in the mountains. This majestic tree is often regarded as an annoyance (and a trash tree in loggers’ terms), but once you stop to see it for all its gifts a shift can take place inside your heart and mind. And if you are looking for cottonwood buds for purchase, click here to check out our shop.
