Authors: prunus avium: Linné, prunus serotina: Ehrl., family: rosaceae
The native European wild cherry is prunus avium, the ancestor of our cultivated sweet cherry. Its
fruits are red and sweet. Only the stalks have been used medicinally as an astringent drug.
The wild black cherry, prunus serotina, is a native of North America, with black, bitter fruits. This
is the tree whose inner bark is used as a cough remedy.
Photo by Marguerite Gregory, California Academy of Sciences
More about black cherry and cherry stalks in MGMH
Text References: Healing
| CB 9, 139 |
"Ayla, this wild cherry bark is old. It's just not good any more, "Iza gestured early one morning. "When you go out today, why don't you get some fresh. (...) Get the inner bark, it's best this time of year." |
| CB 9, 140 |
I hope the fresh cherry bark will help Iza's cough. She's getting better, I think, but she's so skinny. |
| CB 9, 146 |
Suddenly, she remembered she was supposed to be getting wild cherry bark for Iza. (...) Quickly, she (...) raced to the cherry trees, cut away the outer bark with her flint knife, and scraped off long thin pieces of the inner cambium layer. (...)
"Here's your cherry bark." |
| CB 15, 238 |
"Iza sent me to get some wild cherry bark, but when I got there, you were
all there," she explained. "Iza needed the cherry bark (...), so I waited and
watched." |
| VH 5, 81 |
When she climbed down, she decided to get cherry bark for coughs. With
her hand-axe, she chopped away a section of the tough outer bark, then
scraped off the inner cambium layer with a knife. It reminded her of the
time when she was a girl and had gone to collect wild cherry bark for Iza. |
| VH 16, 286 |
Pneumonia
She tried to control the deep spasms from her chest that tore at her throat
while she waited for water to boil. Finally, with a decoction of elecampane roots and wild cherry bark
to help, the cough quieted and she returned to her bed. |
| MH 25, 404-405 |
Fralie's Labor
It's a decoction for her throat. (...) "Now, drink this. It will quiet
your cough, and make you feel better. (...)"
"What's in it?" Crozie demanded. (...)
"The inner bark of wild black cherry, to calm her, and to calm her
// cough and relieve the pain of labor," Ayla explained, "boiled with the
dried root of blue cohosh, first ground to a powder, to help the pushing
muscles work harder to hurry delivery. She's too far into labor to stop
it." |
Text References: Food
| VH 5, 79 |
Winter Storage
She was making a storage container, thinking about everything she had
to do to make herself secure for the cold season ahead. (...)
The cherry tree is full, but they're almost too ripe. If I'm going
to get some, I'd better do it today. (...)
I'll get cherries and grain today, but I'm going to need more storage
baskets. Maybe I can make some containers out of birchbark. |
| VH 5, 81 |
She found the wild cherry tree, picked as many as she could reach,
then climbed up to get more. She ate her share, too; even overripe, they
were tart-sweet. |
| VH 14, 260 |
She took a piece of dried meat and some raisined cherries and sat on her bed. |
| MH 18, 274 |
Adoption Gift to Nezzie
The basket, divided into sections by flexible birchbark, was full of
food. There were small hard apples, sweet and spicy wild carrots, peeled,
gnarled roots of starchy groundnuts, pitted dried cherries, dried but still
green day-lily buds, round green milk vetch dried in the pod, dried mushrooms,
dried stalks of green onions, and some unidentifiable dried leaves and
slices. Nezzie smiled warmly at her as she examined the selection. It was
a perfect gift. |
|
Abbreviations |
Editions |
| CB |
The Clan of the Cave Bear |
The page numbers refer to the hardcover editions by Crown Publishers, Inc, New York 1980, 1982, 1985, 1990.
Book 1-3 are the Special Collector's Edition, I don't know if the page numbers differ from those of the 'normal' hardcover editions. |
| VH |
The Valley of Horses |
| MH |
The Mammoth Hunters |
| PP |
The Plains of Passage |
| (...) |
omission |
Copyright |
| ... |
original in text |
All book quotes: © Copyright Jean M. Auel
The format and text contents of this site are the property of the author |
| MGMH |
'A Modern Herbal', by Mrs. M. Grieve |
Comments, suggestions, errors, anything else ... emails are welcome!
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Authors: prunus avium: Linné, prunus serotina: Ehrl., family: rosaceae