Yesterday my friend and I walked up a moist forest trail to a place where our naturalist neighbor had cut a few poplar branches from the tall, overhanging trees. We walked under fir trees dripping with fog, and through an old abandoned apple orchard where the mossy trees had red apples all over them like ornaments.
The resinous buds of the poplar were what we were out to collect: Balm of Gilead, they’re called. The tree is either Populus candicans or Populus balsamifera, I’m not sure which, but the resinous little leaf buds that we picked seemed to be at their sticky prime. Pretty soon our fingers were so sticky from the resin that it was hard to drop the buds into our little containers. It took perhaps 45 minutes or so for us each to pick maybe a cup and a half; the buds are small, and with our sticky fingers the picking went slowly.
But I came home and put some into olive oil, to serve as a massage oil for aching joints. Now, just 24 hours later, the oil is richly fragrant. In the photo, which is not a good one, you can see the little buds like fish in their jar. The red resin is visible as well. Here’s a page about them on Local Harvest, which is a website everyone should know about anyway.
I also immersed some in a jar with brandy, to serve as a headache remedy in dark wintry days to come.
You come across the fragrance of these trees in the woods before you actually see the tree. I picked green coriander berries from the garden after the balm of gilead, and the combination left my hands covered with such intense perfume I couldn’t bear to wash them all evening long.
Other things on my mind tonight are bees and story-telling, but that will all wait for another day. Sometimes I’m crammed so full of ideas I can hardly sort them all out.
Balm of Gilead
poplar buds in olive oil
Yesterday my friend and I walked up a moist forest trail to a place where our naturalist neighbor had cut a few poplar branches from the tall, overhanging trees. We walked under fir trees dripping with fog, and through an old abandoned apple orchard where the mossy trees had red apples all over them like ornaments.
The resinous buds of the poplar were what we were out to collect: Balm of Gilead, they’re called. The tree is either Populus candicans or Populus balsamifera, I’m not sure which, but the resinous little leaf buds that we picked seemed to be at their sticky prime. Pretty soon our fingers were so sticky from the resin that it was hard to drop the buds into our little containers. It took perhaps 45 minutes or so for us each to pick maybe a cup and a half; the buds are small, and with our sticky fingers the picking went slowly.
But I came home and put some into olive oil, to serve as a massage oil for aching joints. Now, just 24 hours later, the oil is richly fragrant. In the photo, which is not a good one, you can see the little buds like fish in their jar. The red resin is visible as well. Here’s a page about them on Local Harvest, which is a website everyone should know about anyway.
I also immersed some in a jar with brandy, to serve as a headache remedy in dark wintry days to come.
You come across the fragrance of these trees in the woods before you actually see the tree. I picked green coriander berries from the garden after the balm of gilead, and the combination left my hands covered with such intense perfume I couldn’t bear to wash them all evening long.
Other things on my mind tonight are bees and story-telling, but that will all wait for another day. Sometimes I’m crammed so full of ideas I can hardly sort them all out.