18 



AMERICAN MEDICINAL BARKS. 



with wintergreen oil, and is employed for similar purposes. Both bark and oil 

 are used for flavoring. Birch bark will bring from about 1 to 3 cents a pound. 

 The bitter, aromatic leaves are also used in domestic practice, and birch beer 

 is made from the sweet sap. 



TAG-ALDER. 



Alnus rugosa (Du Roi) K. Koch. 



Synonym. — Alnus serrulate Willd. 



Other common names. — Common alder, red alder, smooth alder, green alder, 

 American alder, speckled alder, swamp-alder, notch-leaved alder. 



Habitat and range. — Tag-alder is found in swamps and along the marshy 

 banks of streams from New England south to Florida and Texas, and westward 



to Ohio and Minnesota. It is a native 

 of this country. 



Description of tree. — Sometimes the 

 tag-alder, which belongs to the birch 

 family (Betulacere), attains the height 

 of a tree, but more often it is only a 

 shrub, growing from 5 to 20 feet high, 

 with a smooth brownish gray bark. 

 The leaves are 2 to 4J inches long, 

 oval, somewhat leathery, green above 

 and below, the apex round or blunt, 

 and the base narrowed or rounded, the 

 margins minutely but sharply toothed. 

 The flowers are produced before the 

 leaves are out, early in spring, about 

 March or April. They are reddish 

 green, the female flowers borne in an 

 erect catkin, while the male flowers 

 are borne in a drooping catkin. The 

 small, oval, conelike fruit usually re- 

 mains on the shrub throughout the 

 winter. (Fig. 10.) 



Description of bark. — As it occurs in 

 commerce, tag-alder bark is in straight, 



Fig. 10. — Tag-alder (Alnus rugosa), leaves, 

 catkins, and fruit. 



curved, or occasionally quilled pieces of varying length and width, but gen- 

 erally broken up into rather small pieces, the outer surface brownish gray or 

 greenish gray and smoothish, the inside cinnamon colored and closely and 

 coarsely ridged. It breaks with a sharp, even fracture. The odor is strong 

 and rather aromatic, and the taste astringent and bitter. 



Prices and uses. — The amount paid to collectors ranges from 1 to 4 cents a 

 pound. 



Tag-alder bark is used in medicine for its astringent, alterative, and emetic 

 properties. 



WHITE OAK. 



Quercus alba L 



Pharmacopoeial name. — Quercus. 

 Other common names. — Stone-oak, stave-oak. 

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