Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Fraxinus Americana - OLEACEAE - American White Ash
Fraxinus Americana
OLEACEAE
American white ash
The white ash is a sturdy tree common to much of the United States, and is easily identified through its compound leaves, with small flowers coming in panicles from the axils of the preceding year’s leaves. Familywise, the ash is related to the olive, the privet, and the lilac.
Medicinally, the value of the American white ash is not so great as that of the species which grows in Italy. Each year the United States receives from Italy thousands of pounds of a substance called manna, the exudation of the bark of F. ornus and about the best laxative known for children.
The active principle in manna is called mannite, or mannitol, which, in lesser proportions, is also found in the American white ash and in other species. From this we may deduce that the American white ash has similar laxative values. Some writers recommend the use of an extract of the bark, while others prefer an infusion or decoction of the leaves.
One writer, for instance, says that “the bark is tonic, cathartic, diuretic, febrifuge, diaphoretic, astringent, antiarthritic, and alterative. It is said to be mildly laxative and has been used as an adjuvant to other laxatives and to disguise their taste. It has been prescribed for vertigo, headache followed by fever…”
In the middle Atlantic states the leaves of some ash species are valued as a cure for snakebites, but one wonders if this is not the remnant of an Elizabethan tale, for we find Gerard quoting from an earlier source, “The leaves of this tree are of so great a vertue against serpents, as that the serpents dare not be so bolde as to touch the morning and evening shadows of the tree…”
The ash tree was, says Grigson, sacred in Europe and Britain, and many powers were ascribed to it, including the curing of warts and the ruptures of children. To accomplish this, a young ash was split open and the naked, ruptured baby passed through the opening. The ash was then bound up, and as the ash healed, so, supposedly, did the rupture of the child.