Balsam poplar buds
Populus balsamifera
Also called Black poplar, Balm of Gilead
We do not have a Blackfoot or Cree name for this one yet. Tell us the name and we will add it, with your word on where it comes from.
In early spring the leaf buds of balsam poplar swell sticky and fragrant. Steeped in fat or oil they make a salve, and the smell of them is the smell of a river bottom in April.
Commonly shared knowledge. Learn it, gather it, and follow the protocol.
Take care
- Poplar resin contains salicylates, the same family as aspirin. Anyone who reacts badly to aspirin should not use this on the skin, and it is not used on children with a fever.
- The resin stains and does not come off cloth. Wear something you do not mind ruining.
What it is confused with
Easily confusedTrembling aspen Populus tremuloides
Aspen has chalky white-green bark, round leaves on flattened stalks that shake in any breeze, and small buds that are not sticky or fragrant.
How to know it
- Buds
- Long, pointed, sticky with resin and strongly fragrant in early spring. The resin will coat your fingers and it does not wash off easily.
- Smell
- Sweet, balsamic, resinous. Carries on the air near a stand of poplar on a warm spring day.
- Leaves
- Broadly oval with a pointed tip, dark green above and pale, often rust-stained, beneath.
- Bark
- Grey-green and smooth on young trees, deeply furrowed and dark on old ones.
- Where
- River bottoms and floodplains, almost always with water nearby.
The country it grows in
- Riverbanks and willow flats
- Aspen parkland
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Buds March to MayWhile the buds are fat and sticky, before they break into leaf.
Right now it is July. Nothing on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Skin and wounds
Buds steeped gently in fat or oil give a fragrant salve used on chapped skin, cracked hands and small scrapes. This is one of the most widely documented salve preparations in the north.
How it is prepared
- Salve
Buds are warmed gently in fat or oil over low heat for several hours, strained, and left to set.
Keep the heat low. Boiling ruins the resin and scorches the fat.
- Dried and stored
Buds can be dried and kept, though the fresh sticky ones make the better salve.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.
Take buds from fallen branches after a wind if you can. Otherwise take a few from many trees and none from a small one.