The Birch

First Tree of the celtic calender

The Birch (Betula) - December 24 - January 20

The birch species small to medium size shrubs and trees. The bark is distinct and is papery and thin.The trees are white and or slight grey in colour and is resistant to decay, and the flowers open before the leaves.

Medicinal Properties

Birch has a multitude of historical uses but is less familiar for its undoubted medicinal properties. The sap makes a clear and refreshing drink that can be preserved as a wine, beer, or spirit. The leaves produce a pleasant tea and an infused oil. In each form, birch is an excellent tonic and detoxifier, mainly working on the urinary system to remove waste products, as in kidney or bladder stone, gravel, gout, and rheumatism. It reduces fluid retention and swellings, and clears up many skin problems.

Birch is one of the most useful of trees as well as one of the most graceful. From adhesives to wine, baskets to yokes, and boats to vinegar, it has been a boon to people in the cold north for thousands of years. Its medicinal properties have been historically valued and should be better known today.

Called the oldest tree in Britain, birch was a pioneer species when the ice caps retreated, moving in on the devastated land, growing quickly and then rotting to leave more fertile earth in which other species could take over. In its rapid life cycle birch pushes upward too fast to develop a strong heart wood, but this makes it perfect for making buckets and canoes.

As a youngster (writes Matthew), I was a suburban Hiawatha, and wanted to be a “Red Indian.” I had read in my weekly comic, the Eagle, how my heroes had made birch bark canoes and wrote on bark paper. Birch was a common enough tree, but I never really got down to the canoe or the paper. Soccer was more important.

But now these memories return, as Julie and I tap a birch in our garden. It is that time in spring after most of the frosts and before the birch buds and leaves emerge. The tree is now forcing its sap upward in prodigious quantity, and you simply tap into the flow, remembering to be kind to the tree after you have taken your share by closing off the wound.

Birch sap is rich in fructose whereas maple has sucrose. Sucrose is sweeter to the taste and the maple yields more per tree, so maple syrup is by far the bigger commercial industry. On the other hand, birch sap is cool, refreshing and clear. It tastes even better when reduced by simmering down into a golden-brown ambrosia. It’s the sort of drink the elves would envy!

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-health/birch-trees-natural-medicine-ze0z1401zbla.aspx#ixzz3NtIYvBBQ

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