Contents:
Common Names | Parts Usually Used | Plant(s) & Culture | Where Found | Medicinal Properties | Biochemical Information
Legends, Myths and Stories | Uses | Formulas or Dosages | Nutrient Content | How Sold | Warning | Resource Links | Bibliography
Scientific Names
- Quercus alba L.
- Fagaceae
- Beech family
Common Names
- Common White Oak
- Hu (Chinese name)
- Tanner’s bark
Parts Usually Used
Bark
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Description of Plant(s) and Culture
White oak is a large, native North American tree; usually 60-100 feet high, but may grow as tall as 150 feet with a trunk diameter up to 8 feet. White oak bark is pale gray, and the leaves have rounded or finger-shaped lobes. The alternate, deciduous leaves are bright green and hairless, widest beyond the middle, with 3-5 pairs of rounded lobes. Light brown, ovoid acorns grow on current year’s twigs in bowl-shaped cups enclosing a quarter of the acorn.
Other varieties: Red oak (Q. rubra); Black oak (Q. tinctoria); English oak (Q. robur)
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Where Found
Grows from Canada southward to the Gulf of Mexico, as far west as Texas. Found in upland woods.
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Medicinal Properties
Astringent, tonic, antiseptic, anthelmintic, styptic
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Biochemical Information
Calcium, cobalt, 15-20% tannin, iron, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, sulfur, and vitamin B12.
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Legends, Myths and Stories
The acorns are astringent like the bark; but when shelled, ground into a meal and soaked in running water for a few hours, the tannic acid is leached out. They then may be used as a nutritive tonic for wasting diseases.
In some areas, Native Americans would gather 500 lb. per family, which was a year’s supply. These were stored and later used for bread, pudding, soup, etc., prepared fresh from the ground acorn. They also were known to have allowed acorn meal to go moldy in a dark, damp place, and then scrape the mold off for application to boils, sores, and other inflammations.
There are about 40 species of the genus Quercus in China.
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Uses
Good for hemorrhoids, PMS, varicose veins, goiter, gallstones, kidney stones, fever, sores, wounds, sore throat, canker sores, menstrual problems, gonorrhea, leukorrhea, stomach troubles, and bladder problems. Good for teeth. Tea used in enemas and douches. Used for chronic diarrhea, dysentery, ringworm, chronic mucous discharge, poison-ivy rash, burns, pinworms, hemostatic. Stops hemorrhages in the lungs, stomach, scrofula, and bowels, spitting of blood, stops vomiting. Used for inflammations, boils, sores, infections internally and externally. Folk cancer remedy. Since it contains tannin, experimentally, tannic acid is antiviral, antiseptic, antitumor and carcinogenic.
Taken internally for poisoning by strychnine, veratrine, and other vegetable alkaloids.
A poultice of powdered oak bark and wheat flour combined with a little boiled water draws out slivers or splinters and other foreign substances. A wash of oak, or oak combined with witch hazel bark, is an excellent night-time compress for varicose veins and broken capillaries under the skin.
The galls have the same properties as the bark.
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Formulas or Dosages
Use dried powdered bark from the branches.
Infusion: steep 1 tbsp. bark in 1 pint water, simmering for 10 minutes. Take up to 3 cups a day.
Decoction: use 1 oz. of inner bark and 2 pints of water, boiled down to 1 pint and strained. Take 1 cup every 1 to 2 hours until relief from diarrhea or dysentery if felt.
Some reports of good results with powdered bark in gelatine capsules to relieve diarrhea or dysentery. Take 2 capsules swallowed with a glass of warm water 3 to 4 times a day.
Wash, enema or douche: steep 1 heaping tsp. in 1 qt. water for 30 minutes and strain. Apply often.
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Nutrient Content
Calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and vitamin B12.
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How Sold
Capsules
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Warning
Tannic acid is potentially toxic.
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Resource Links
Civil War Era Medicinals Found Potentially Effective
Futurity: 3 Plants from U.S. Civil War Medical Guide Fight Infection
Emory University: Civil War plant medicines blast drug-resistant bacteria
Bibliography
Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical, and Agricultural; Being Also a Medical Botany of the Confederate States, by Francis Peyre Porcher
Wild Plants and Survival Lore: Secrets of the Forest, by Mark Warren
Back to Eden
Chinese Medicinal Herbs
The Herb Book
Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants
The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine
The Magic of Herbs
Planetary Herbology
The Complete Medicinal Herbal
Indian Herbalogy of North America
American Folk Medicine
Secrets of the Chinese Herbalists
Prescription for Nutritional Healing, Fifth Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs & Food Supplements
Webster’s New World Dictionary
An Instant Guide to Medicinal Plants
The Magic of Herbs in Daily Living
A Useful Guide to Herbal Health Care
The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine
The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book)
