Tamarac

July 29th, 2008

Botanical Name: Larix Americana (MICHX.)
Family: N.O. Coniferae
Synonyms: American Larch. Black Larch. Hackmatack. Pinus Pendula (Salisb.).
The Latin name for Tamarack is Larix laricina. Other common names are Eastern Larch, American Larch, Red Larch, Black Larch, takmahak and Hackmatack, which is an Abenaki word for ‘wood used for snowshoes’ (Erichsen-Brown 1979).

Part Used: Bark.
Habitat: Eastern North America.

Description: The tree has a straight slender trunk with thin horizontal branches growing to 80 to 100 feet high; leaves short, 1 or 2 inches long, very fine, almost thread-form, soft deciduous, without sheaths in fascicles of from twenty to forty, being developed early in the spring from lateral scaly and globular buds which produce growing shoots on which the leaves are scattered. Cones oblong of a few rounded scales widening upward from 1/2 to 1 inch in length, deep purple colour, scales thin, inflexed on the margin. Bracts elliptical, often hollowed at the sides, abruptly acuminate, with a slender point and, together with the scales, persistent.

Tamarack is one of only three native North American larch species and is the most common. This larch sheds its needles in the fall like baldcypress. Tamarack is the most cold-hardy of any native tree and has the strongest wood of all the conifers. Tamarack also has the widest range of all the North American conifers.

Though the tamarack tree resembles other evergreens, it is actually a deciduous conifer, meaning that it sheds it’s needles every fall. It commonly grows in swamps and sphagnum bogs but also grows in upland soils. The flaky dark reddish-gray bark of the tamarack tree resembles Black Spruce. The pale green needles are soft and short (about an inch long) and grow in brush-like tufts on small knobby spurs along each twig. The cones of the tamarack are also fairly small – round, and less than an inch long (Peterson 1977). Very often you will see the tall tamarack trees growing in pure stands. Just before the needles drop in autumn, the needles turn a beautiful golden color, affording the stands of tamarack a striking contrast to the fall foliage.

Tamarack trees are well adapted to the cold. The tree’s natural range is from Labrador to West Virginia, northern Illinois and New Jersey, across southern Canada to Northern British Columbia Alaska. It grows near sea level in northern regions, and at higher elevations in the southern extreme of it’s range.

Tamarack Trees as Food:
The tender spring shoots are nutritious, and can be eaten when they are boiled. The inner bark (cambium layer) of the tamarack tree can also be scraped, dried and ground into a meal to be mixed with other flours… which some references indicate is an ‘acquired’ taste (Peterson 1977), while other references imply the gummy sap that seeps from the tree has a very good flavor when chewed (Hutchens 1973), as sweet as maple sugar.

Medicinal Action and Uses:
A tea made from tamarack bark is used as a laxative, tonic, a diuretic for jaundice, rheumatism, and skin ailments. It is gargled for sore throats. Poultices from the inner bark are used on sores, swellings and burns, as well as for headaches. For headaches, Ojibwe crush the leaves and bark and either applied as a poultice, or placed on hot stones and the fumes inhaled (Erichsen-Brown 1979). A tea from the needles is used as an astringent, and for piles diarrhea, dysentery, and dropsy. The gum from the tamarack sap is chewed for indigestion. The sawdust from tamarack may cause dermatitis (Foster & Duke 1977).

Alma Hutchins (1973) describes some of the uses for a tea made from 1 teaspoon of the inner bark of tamarack boiled and steeped for 30 minutes in a cup full of water:

Because of its astringent and gently stimulating qualities the inner bark is especially useful for melancholy, often caused by the enlarged, slugish, hardened, condition of the liver and spleen with inactivates various other functions of the metabolism. For domestic use in emergencies, or long-standing bleeding of any kind, in lungs, stomach, bowels, or too profuse menstruation. Also for diarrhoea, rheumatism, bronchitis, asthma and poisonous insect bites. J. Kloss in ‘Back to Eden’, recommends the weak tea as an eye wash and the warm tea dropped in the ear to relieve earache. A decoction of the bark, combined with Spearmint (Mentha veridis), Juniper (Juniperus communis), Horse radish (Cochlearia armoracia), and taken in wineglassful doses has proven valuable in dropsy. (Hutchins 1973)

The Chippewa (or Ojibway/Ojibwe) word for tamarack is ‘muckigwatig’ meaning ‘swamp tree’. The bark of the tree is used for burns. For burns, the inner bark of tamarack is finely chopped and applied to the burn in the morning and partially washed off at night, then reapplied the next morning. Tamarack used for internal medicine is said to be a laxitive, tonic, diuretic and alterative. The medical constituents of tamarack are a volatile oil which contains pinene, larixine, and the ester bornylacetate (Densmore 1974).

The Potawatomi and Menomini make a heat-generating poultice from fresh inner tamarack bark for inflamation and wounds, or steeped for a medicinal tea. They also use it as a medicine for their horses, either as a tea to help Menomini horses with distemper, or shreaded inner bark mixed with oats to keep the hides of the Potawatomi horses loose (Erichsen-Brown 1979).

The bark used as a decoction is laxative, tonic, diuretic and alterative, useful in obstructions of the liver, rheumatism, jaundice and some cutaneous diseases. A decoction of the leaves has been used for piles, haemoptysis, menorrhagia, diarrhoea and dysentery.

Dosage: 2 tablespoonsful of the bark decoction.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/t/tamara03.html

http://www.fws.gov/Midwest/RiceLake/Habitat.htm

http://forestry.about.com/library/tree/bltam.htm

http://www.nativetech.org/willow/tamarack/tamarack.html

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