Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines: Cephalanthus, Button Bush, Cephalotaxus, Plum Yew and Chamaedaphne calyculata, Leatherleaf
Cephalanthus, Button Bush
This is an easy one, because there is only one Cephalanthus documented in Herbal Medicine, and it is native to my region.
Plants for A Future states:
Medicinal use of Button Bush: Button bush was often employed medicinally by native North American Indian tribes who used it to treat a range of ailments. It is little used in modern herbalism. A tea made from the bark is astringent, emetic, febrifuge and tonic. A strong decoction has been used to treat diarrhoea and dysentery, stomach complaints, haemorrhages etc. It has been used as a wash for eye inflammations. A decoction of either the roots or the fruits have been used as a laxative to treat constipation The leaves are astringent, diaphoretic, diuretic and tonic. A tea has been used to check menstrual flow and to treat fevers, kidney stones, pleurisy etc. The plant has a folk reputation for relieving malaria. The inner bark has been chewed in the treatment of toothaches.
King’s American Dispensatory of 1898 states:
Buttonbush is indigenous to the United States, and is found in damp places, along the margins of rivers, ponds, etc., flowering from June to September. The bark is the part used, and possesses much bitterness. Water or alcohol takes up its virtues. Buttonbush bark occurs in market as short, curved pieces of a smooth, grayish-brown color marked with fine striae externally. The smooth and white inner bark is tough, and changes to a pale, rusty-brown color. Old bark has sometimes a fissured, ashen-gray, corky layer upon the surface. It has a bitterish, sub-astringent taste, but no odor.
Chemical Composition.—Analysis has shown the bark to contain starch, sugar, gum, fatty matter, several resins, tannin, a saponin-like body, and an amorphous, bitter constituent readily soluble in both water and alcohol. A crystalline, fluorescent body has been obtained by precipitation with acetate and subacetate of lead. These acicular crystals are dissolved by alcohol, ether, and water (Hattan, Amer. Jour. Pharm., Vol. XLV).
Mr. Edo Claasen has obtained three bodies from the bark, cephalanthin, cephaletin, and cephalin. The latter occurs as warty crystals, and is thought to be a glucosid, splitting up into glucose and cephaletin on evaporating the solution. Cephalin is in yellowish-white needles, strongly-refracting, acid in reaction, and otherwise tasteless. It is insoluble in petroleum ether, very sparingly soluble in cold water, more soluble in hot water, and dissolving with greater ease in alcohol, ether, benzol, chloroform, and acetic acid. This body is strongly fluorescent in aqueous, alcoholic, and alkaline solutions, all well diluted. Even so minute a trace as 1 part in 2,000,000 of water exhibits this property, and if an alkali be added the blue coloration will be noticeable in a dilution of 1 to 20,000,000. The concentrated alkaline solution has a lemon-yellow color (Proc. A. P. A., 1892).
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Tonic, febrifuge, aperient, and diuretic. The bark has been used with much success in intermittent and remittent fevers; and the inner bark of the root forms an agreeable bitter, which is often employed in coughs, and as a diuretic in gravel. The plant deserves further investigation. Tincture, 10 to 30 drops; infusion, fl℥ss to fl℥i.
Cephalanthin is, according to Kobert (1892), distinctly poisonous to both cold and warm-blooded animals, producing emesis, spasms, and paralysis. It destroys the blood corpuscles, converting them into methaemoglobin and oxyhaemoglobin.
Related Species.—Sarcocephalus esculentus, Afzelius. Senegambia and Sierra Leone furnish this plant, which is known in its habitat as the doundake. The bark, under the names Quinquina Africaine and Kina du Rio Nunez, is employed by the negroes as a febrifuge. More properly it is an astringent tonic, and as such is useful in the anemic state following typhoids, and as a remedy for loss of appetite, and for atonic dyspepsia. No alkaloid is present, according to Heckel and Schlagdenhauffen, but its virtues seem to depend upon three resinous principles—an orange-yellow bitter soluble in water, alcohol, and solution of potassa; a pale-yellow body insoluble in water, but soluble in potassa solution; and the third insoluble in alcohol and water, but dissolving in the potassa solution.
Peterson Field Guides Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants tells us:
American Indians chewed the inner bark for toothaches; bark tea used as a wash for eye inflammation, also emetic and stops bleeding. Leaf tea was drunk to stop menstrual flow. Thought to be tonic, diuretic, astringent, promotes sweating. Leaf tea once used for fevers, coughs, “gravel” (kidney stones), malaria, palsy, pleurisy and toothaches. Interestingly, this plant which superficially resembles a diminutive Cinchona bush (source of quinine), belongs to the same family and has a folk reputation, as dogwood does, for relieving fever and malaria. Warning: Contains the glucosides cephalothin and cephalin.
Cephalotaxus, Plum Yew
Nine varieties of Plum Yew have documented use in Herbal Medicine: Cephalotaxus fortunei - Chinese Plum Yew, Cephalotaxus harringtonia - Japanese Plum Yew, Cephalotaxus harringtonia drupacea - Japanese Plum Yew, Cephalotaxus harringtonia koreana - Korean Plum Yew, Cephalotaxus harringtonia nana - Japanese Plum Yew, Cephalotaxus lanceolata - Yunnan Plum, Cephalotaxus oliveri, Cephalotaxus sinensis - Chinese Plum, Cephalotaxus wilsoniana
One is naturalized in my region, Cephalotaxus harringtonia (Japanese Plum-yew).
The Plum Yews are not known to be strongly medicinal, however, some varieties have shown promise in cancer research. It is important to note that Plum Yew is not the same species as Yew, which is extremely poisonous.
Plants for A Future states only of Japanese Plum Yew:
The fruit of this plant is said to be astringent and inedible even when fully ripe. However, several of its sub-species produce a very nice sweet fruit
Chamaedaphne calyculata, Leatherleaf
Likewise, there is only one Chamaedaphne calyculata and it is native to my region. This is a fairly rare shrub in most places, but is not uncommon in Bladen County, NC, where my family settled in the 1700s and also occasionally turns up in the mountains where I live.
Plants for A Future states only:
Medicinal use of Leather Leaf: A poultice of the leaves has been applied to inflammations. An infusion of the leaves has been used to treat fevers
This article is an excerpt from
Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast An Herbalist's Guide
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Available for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6: by Judson Carroll
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Ferns and Fern Allies, an Herbalist's Guide
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The Encyclopedia of Bitter Medicinal Herbs:
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Look Up: The Medicinal Trees of the American South, An Herbalist's Guide
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