Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

© 2004 by CRC Press
The Ethnobotany 523
westerse plataan (western plane-tree, Dutch,
Canada, USA, West Indies)
aya (Veracruz)
ayan’ sanhan’ udi’ (‘‘strong wood tree’’ or san,
white?, Biloxi; compare with Omaha jan san,
white wood and Osage sansan, white sycamore)
bois puant (stinking tree, Canada, France)
butterwood (a corruption of ‘‘button’’?, North
America); buttonball[-tree] (USA); buttonwood
(surely an allusion to the round, buttonlike
fruits; recorded in Swedish by Kalm in 1753;
first published in English by Frederick Pursh in
1814 for this species, Canada, United Kingdom)
ciɬ ó (Koasati); sini (Choctaw)
cotonier (cotton tree, French, USA)
keisewaquata (Shawnee, fide Edgar 1891)
kuwajunega (Cherokee)
oo-da-te-cha-wunnes (big stockings, Delaware?,
USA)
[American] sycamore tree [sycomore] (‘‘sycamore’’
was originally applied to Ficus sycamorus, a fig in
Egypt, Syria, and nearby countries. The word is
a combination of Greek sykos, fig, and moros,
the mulberry, and came into English about A.D.
1300. By ca. 1588, it was applied to European
Acer pseudoplatanus, and then to American
Platanus by 1814 or perhaps before.)
Virginia maple (name in New England in the
1740s, fide Kalm 1753)
wasbok [watenbok] (water beech, used by Swedes
in Pennsylvania in the 1740s, Kalm 1753); water
beech [waterbeech] (published in Swedish by
Peter Kalm in 1753; the OED says first in
English by Frederick Pursh in 1814)
yap hi·tuwi·’ (tree of burrs); yap taktce’ hi·tcuwi·’hare
[ya bwe] (tree white [of] many burrs,
Catawba)
The common names ‘‘plane-tree’’ and ‘‘sycamore’’
have been confused in English since the 1300s. That
confusion reflects the application of the names to Acer
pseudoplatanus and Platanus orientalis. For example,
Vickery (1993) devotes almost two pages to the
‘‘sycamore’’ (Acer), yet that maple in Norway is the
tanbark plane (platanlønn). In the United States, a
‘‘sycamore’’ is Platanus.
The name ‘‘plane’’ was in English before the
‘‘official’’ introduction of Platanus. In 1398, a John
De Trevisa wrote, ‘‘The plane is a colde tre and a drye,
and ye leaves therof helep in hoot eveles.’’ Therefore,
by that period, Europeans as far north as England
were making medical use of a ‘‘plane’’ tree that must
have been Acer.
William Turner’s Herball recorded that P. orientalis,
a native to Asia Minor, was introduced into Britain
around 1562 (OED 1971). Then, 78 years later, John
Parkinson told us that John Tradescant had P.
occidentalis sent to him from Virginia and introduced
it into England. Neither of these two species did
well in the British Isles. In 1675, people noticed
a different plane-tree. Although these hybrid trees
(P. /acerifolia) are now called the ‘‘London Plane,’’
they probably originated in France or Spain (Edlin
and Mitchell 1985). From that point, the ‘‘plane’’
became one of the most common street trees in
England and much of the rest of Great Britain.
The Cherokee were one of the few tribes recorded
as using the wood of Platanus (Hamel and Chiltoskey
1975). Settlers used the wood for crates, interior
finishing, furniture, cooperage, rollers, butcher blocks,
and tobacco boxes (Vines 1977). In spite of this usage,
the technical sheet from the U.S. Forestry Service is
not overly complimentary. It states that, although the
wood is not durable, ‘‘It holds its shape well after
steaming and machines, but requires high speed cutter
heads to prevent chipping. It shrinks moderately in
drying and is inclined to warp when flat sawn.’’ The
sapwood is white to light yellow, while the heartwood
is light to dark brown. Sycamore is classified as
moderate in weight, hardness, stiffness, shock resistance,
strength in bending, endwise compression, and
nail-holding ability. It has a close texture, glues well,
and resists splitting due to interlocked grain. The
Forestry Service noted modern application in furniture
(especially drawer sides), containers, millwork,
flooring, veneer, pallets, boxes, plywood, pulp wood,
paper, and particle boards.
Although there seem to be no medical applications
of Platanus in Europe, indigenous Americans used it
throughout its range. The Cherokee considered the
trees, but especially the bark, cathartic and emetic, and
used it for menstrual and urinary problems and
measles. They also treated dysentery with an inner
bark infusion. Externally, the Cherokee and Iroquois
used sycamore in a steam bath for rheumatism (Hamel
and Chiltoskey 1975, Moerman 1998). The Creeks,
Delaware, and Meskwaki treated colds, sore throat,
hoarseness, and tuberculosis with the bark. The
Cherokee, Iroquois, and Meskwaki used bark or root
infusions to treat skin eruptions, scabs, eczema, and
knife and ax wounds (Swanton 1928a, Taylor 1940,
Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975, Moerman 1998).
Moerman (1998) recorded Mahuna use of this
species, but this tree does not grow there (Hickman
1993).
Foster and Duke (1990) found that the bark was
once recommended by descendants of Europeans for
rheumatism and scurvy. They found no evidence of
efficacy. Lewis and Elvin-Lewis (1977) mention only
that the airborne pollen causes allergies. Hocking