Monday, October 31, 2005

Baloo, You Might Want To Pick A Different Tree...




















This wicked looking tree trunk is Hercules Club. I have these growing on my homestead, but they are younger than this fine specimen. Hercules club is also known as "toothache tree". A little of the bark is applied to sore gums to kill pain.

I don't make a habit of eating tree bark, except for cinnamon, but I have tried this tree's bark on the tongue and it has a definite tingly, numbing sensation.

Not a tree to trifle with. Posted by Picasa

9 comments:

robin andrea said...

I hadn't ever heard of this tree before, so I googled it. What an interesting tree. It's been used by Native Americans for so many ailments. I love reading about folk remedies and really appreciate learning about new ones like this.

Anonymous said...

Once again, FC, you've pegged another plant I'm really fond of. It's an ungainly beast, with thorns that seem to throw a lot of people off, but as I recall it's a great native plant and bees and butterflies are especially taken with it.

In a similar way, I really like honey locust, which has the sharpest, most wickedest thorns you can imagine. I understand there are honey locust varieties without the thorns, but my feeling is it's sort of like decaffeinated coffee - why bother?

Anonymous said...

We have a palm tree that has a trunk just like that one. I'll try to get picture of it on my site. They are so similar! I can honestly say that when you're weeding, you should wear a helmet when working around these trees.
I uh, had that problem a few times.


Really enjoying the scenery and the pictures around your "neighborhood"!

Happy Halloween. Hope the bears don't scare ya. Frankly, they're not as scary as the developers...

Thunder said...

Wow, what a wicked looking tree!

Suzanne said...

That's one scary looking tree. I've never seen anything like this before. We ran across a tree with sharp barbs on it when we were in Belize. If you brush against the tree they embed in your skin and they're poisonous. The antidote is inside the tree trunk, you must cut it down and split it open and use the pump to counteract the poison.

Karen Schmautz said...

It looks like something out of my worst nightmare. Creepy.

R.Powers said...

RD,
Isn't Google a wonder?

Wayne,
10-4 on that...no decaf and no lite beer.

Laura,
You might have a needle palm.


DPR,
I never thought of it like that, but this tree has it covered from all angles.


Zanne,
I remember an old old movie about the everglades in which some poor guy gets tied to a tree...cachineel or something like that, they scored the tree so the sap would drip onto this guy and burn his skin. The scene stuck with me...

Hick,
No, that would be the sandspur.

Carla said...

a toothache tree. funny, it looks like it is full of yanked teeth.

R.Powers said...

Patina,
And it does bite!