Medicinal Monday... Chaga Mushrooms - unattractive but useful!

Some types of fungus are unattractive and Chaga mushrooms are not only unattractive they are actually a parasite on birch trees that grow throughout the northern hemisphere including Connecticut. Chaga has been widely used medicinally around the world for centuries in Poland, Russia, and in North America by Native Americans. 

About Chaga Mushrooms

Inonotus obliquus or the Chaga mushroom is usually found on standing birch trees. It is a type of shelf mushroom, bracket fungi, or polypore because it protrudes from a tree trunk. This mushroom looks like a large black crusty material that thrusts itself through the tree's bark. At this asexual stage,  known as "sclerotium" the fungus resembles charcoal. It lives in this form as long as the tree lives and causes a fibrous white rot in the center cylinder of the tree. The later reproductive stage appears after the tree has died when a patch of white then brown poroid substance appears under the bark. This brown substance is cork-like and is called "good medicine." In Cree regions, it is called posakan. It can live up to twenty years on a host tree and is found throughout the Northern hemisphere. When the tree finally dies, both the host tree and Chaga die together. The texture that is like cork requires an extraction process for its compounds to be useful and consumed.

Spiritual and Medicinal Uses

Traditionally the rusty brown inner layers of this mushroom have been used for medicine and in ceremonies. Cree healers call Chaga Wiskakecakomikilh, a mythological being who threw a scab that was mistaken for a piece of dried meat against a birch tree. This resulted in the first Chaga mushroom. The Cree used dried Chaga in a smoking pipe ceremony because it produced a sweet-smelling smoke. The Cree, Ojibway, the Denesuline peoples of Norhern Saskatchewan, and the Gitksan of British Columbia use Chaga to treat rheumatic and joint pain and toothaches. The Denesuline would create two long lines of powdered Chaga and light each line from opposite ends. Whichever line burned through first signified what event would happen first. The Cree also used the Chaga mushroom as a fire starter. The Gitksan would take a sliver of the black coal from the birch tree and burn it for joint pain. The Tenaina of South-Central Alaska use Chaga to relieve toothaches.

Did You Know...

The first documentation of therapeutic use was in the 12th century in Eastern Europe.

From historical chronicles, it is known that Kiev Prince (Knyaz) Vladimir Monomakh had a lip tumor and got rid of the disease thanks to treatment with Chaga mushroom.

In the middle of the 20th century, Changa was still used in Siberia for its properties by Russian farmers and workers too poor to buy tea: they crushed it and drank it as an infusion.

During WWII people in Finland used Chaga as a substitute for coffee.

In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel, Cancer Ward, Chaga is mentioned as a medicinal treatment for cancer.

The hot beverage made from Chaga mushrooms is said to taste similar to an combination of coffee and chocolate with a hint of wintergreen.

Chaga mushrooms are high in antioxidants.

Medicinal Monday - Inkberry

Inkberry is a member of the holly family and keeps its glossy deep green leaves and its' deep-purple to black berries can be seen well into the winter months. This low-growing shrub can be found in eastern North America including Connecticut. Native Americans treasured this evergreen plant. 

About Inkberry

The inkberry or illex glabra  is a mound-shaped shrub that can grow between six and twelve feet tall and wide. The toothed glossy leather-like leaves are lance-shaped and vary in color from dark to light green. Small almost inconspicuous white flowers bloom in the summer and are followed by black berries that persist into the winter months. What makes the inkberry different from all other evergreen hollies is that their leaves lack spines and only have teeth on the tips of the leaves. They spread by rhizomes which form colonies. This shrub prefers moist wet sandy to peaty soil and partial shade. It can be found in the woods and near swamps and bogs. In order to have berries, you must have both a make and female plant. The male must be of the same species as the females and they must bloom at the same time.

Medicinal Uses

Ilex glabra or inkberry is also known as Appalachian tea. Dried and roasted inkberry leaves were first used by Native Americans to brew a black tea-like drink. It is said that the leaves taste like orange pekoe tea except that this tea has no caffeine. The berries are not edible. The dry roasted leaves that are made into a tea is a substitute for yaupon tea. The tea was taken to clear out the system.

Did You Know...

All species of this plant may be somewhat toxic if ingested. Toxicity can vary by plant and season.

This shrub attracts many species of birds including bobwhite quail, wild turkey, and small mammals. The leaves are eaten by whitetail deer and rabbits. a

This plant is a larval host for Henry's Elfin larvae which appear from February to May and have just one flight. The adult Henry's Elfin butterflies feed on the flower nectar of this plant.

This plant has a high flammability rating.

Sunday Fun Day Activities @ The Institute for American Indian Studies

The Institute for American Indian Studies located in Washington Connecticut is keeping up a popular tradition in 2021 by offering a series of Native American-inspired craft workshops for kids and families every other Sunday in January and February. 

The workshops will be conducted in a safe socially distanced environment with a maximum of just six participants. The silver lining to offering such small workshops is that museum educators will not only be able to give participants more individualized attention, they will also be able to modify the workshop in accordance with the abilities of the participants. 

 The second Sunday Fun Day craft workshop is taking place on Sunday, January 24 with one-hour time slots offered from 12 noon through 4 p.m. The focus of this workshop is on Native American beading. 

 Beadwork is an art form that has been practiced for centuries throughout Native American communities. Native Americans decorated clothing, dwellings, horse gear, and utensils with materials found in nature such as shells, pieces of bone, stones, seeds, and even porcupine quills. After European contact, many Native Communities began incorporating multi-colored glass beads into their designs. Glass beads were highly valued by Native Americans because they were durable and came in a variety of colors. The beading workshop on January 24 will focus on beading basics and introductory techniques that will get participants started on their own colorful beading project.  

Sunday Fun Day in-person workshops that will highlight a specific Native American craft or art form are planned to take place every other Sunday in February from noon to 4 p.m. Unlike previous years, in order to maintain the highest standards of safety, all workshops require pre-registration for one of the four one-hour time slots. There will be no walk-ins. The cost of participation is admission to the museum ($10 for adults, $8 for Seniors, and $6 for children) plus $10 for workshop materials. Members of the museum are free. Masks are required and hand sanitizer is always available. To make a reservation call the museum at 860-868-0518 or email them at events@iaismuseum.org. 

About The Institute for American Indian Studies

 Located on 15 acres of woodland acres the Institute For American Indian Studies preserves and educates through archeology, research, exhibitions, and programs. They have the 16th c. Algonquian Village, Award-Winning Wigwam Escape, and a museum with temporary and permanent displays of authentic artifacts from prehistory to the present that allows visitors to foster a new understanding of the world and the history and culture of Native Americans. The Institute for American Indian Studies is located at 38 Curtis Road, Washington, CT.

Medicinal Monday - Puffballs

It is hard to imagine how Native Americans accumulated information about edible, and medicinal fungi or mushrooms in their geographic region. There are about 160 examples of Lycoperdaceae or puffballs in the world. Puffballs are named for the fact that puffs of spores are released when the dry powdery tissue of the mature plant is disturbed. While most puffballs are poisonous, some are edible at certain stages in their growth and depending on what genre they belong to. Native Americans found some clever uses for puffballs from the Lycoperdaceae family that grow all over North America.

Common puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum)

About Lycoperdaceae

Puffballs have a two-layered skin that forms a ball-like structure with spores inside. The mushrooms are white and firm inside when they are young. As they mature, they turn into a mass of brown, powdery spores as they dry. As the outer skin begins to decay, the spores are released through a hole in the top. All members of the true puffball family are considered edible before the development of the gleba, they are pure white inside with no gills. Toxic puffballs and look-a-likes have gills and they are not white inside. True puffballs do not have a visible stalk or stem. None of the stalked puffballs are edible. The common distinguishing feature of a true puffball is that they don't have an open cap with gills, rather, their spores are produced internally. All false puffballs should be avoided, they are hard like a rock or brittle and not edible. Be aware that there are a number of false puffballs that look similar to true puffballs and that they are deadly. Once a true puffball has passed its edible stage it will begin to turn yellow or green inside. Puffballs are most often found in soil or on decaying wood in grassy areas and in woods.

Fruit bodies may grow singly, scattered, in groups, or—as shown here—in clusters. Lycoperdon perlatum

Culinary, Ceremonial and Medicinal Uses

Puhpohwee is an old Algonquian word meaning, "to swell up in stature suddenly and silently from an unseen source of power."  This certainly describes the way puffballs in the Lycoperdaceae family grow. Some Native Americans called them ghost make-up, ground ghosts, corpse, or frog's navel. The Blackfeet of the American Plains portrayed giant puffballs as large white circles on their teepees around the tops and bottom to protect the people living in them. They also burned ripe puffballs to keep ghosts away. Many Native American communities believe that puffballs are stars fallen from the heavens for the people's benefit during great celestial events. In the early stages of growth, puffballs were prized as a source of food. 

Fruit bodies of the puffball mushroom Lycoperdon pyriforme growing on a decaying pine log.

The Dakota, Ponca, Omaha, and other tribes of the Plains used puffballs to stop the flow of blood. The Cherokee would place a small fresh piece of puffball on a newborn's navel until the umbilical cord healed. The Menominee, Potawatomi, Iroquois, Zuni, and Rappahannock used powdered puffballs and their ripe spores as talcum. The Blackfeet drank and inhaled spore infusions to stop nosebleeds and hemorrhages. They also use spores to treat eye infections and to draw foreign objects out.

Puffball Releasing Spores

Did You Know...

One of the Dakota names for puffball was "Hokhi" which means baby's navel. 

Some Blackfoot men wear puffball necklaces on a strip of leather because of their earthy perfume.

Puffballs were traditionally used in Tibet for making ink by burning them, grinding the ash, then putting them in water, and adding a glue-like liquid that was pressed for a long time until it made a black substance that was used as ink.

Puffballs are sometimes found in circles called "fairy rings." 

A mature giant puffball contains trillions of spores!

One of the largest giant puffballs ever found was 59 inches!

**Please do not go out and try to forage puffball mushrooms, an incorrect guess can kill if it turns out to be an Aminita.

A Full Moon Walk in January 2021 @ The Institute for American Indian Studies

The ideal way to finish the month of January is to take a walk through the winter woods under the first full moon of January 2021 with the educators of the Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, Connecticut. The full moon walk will take place on Friday, January 29 at 7:00 p.m. Hikers will walk along beautifully wooded trails on the grounds of the Institute and experience the serenity of nature under the bright nighttime sky that Eastern Woodland Native Americans have experienced for centuries. 

Many Native American communities call the January full moon the Wolf Moon because wolves are heard more often at this time of year. Traditionally, it was believed that wolves howled because they were hungry this time of year. Researchers today believe that wolves howl in January to defend their territory and to locate members of their pack to go hunting. 

The January full moon has other names that emphasize the cold temperatures this time of year. The Cree living in the Lake Superior area and Canada call the January full moon the Cold Moon or the Frost Exploding Moon. The Algonquin, a community indigenous to Connecticut calls this moon the Freeze Up Moon, and the Dakota of Minnesota and Wisconsin call it the Hard Moon.

A highlight of this easy walk will be to learn about the phenomena that people in the Eastern Woodlands have been experiencing for thousands of years. After this walk, you will look up at the full moon with a new appreciation of it and, new knowledge, that has been passed down through the centuries. The woodland walk ends at the newly restored and built 16th-century Algonkian village where a warm fire and hot chocolate will greet hikers. 

Space on this walk is limited and pre-registration is required. Please call 860-868-0518 or email events@iaismuseum.org to reserve a spot. The price for participation is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, and $6 for children. The cost for members of the Institute is $5. Remember to dress for the weather, to wear sturdy shoes, and to bring along a flashlight.

About The Institute for American Indian Studies

Located on 15 acres of woodland acres, the Institute For American Indian Studies preserves and educates through archeology, research, exhibitions, and programs. They have the 16^th c. Algonquian Village, Award-Winning Wigwam Escape, and a museum with temporary and permanent displays of authentic artifacts from prehistory to the present that allows visitors to foster a new understanding of the world and the history and culture of Native Americans. The Institute for American Indian Studies is located at 38 Curtis Road, Washington, CT.

Medicinal Monday - Great Laurel Always an Evergreen

One of the most beautiful as well as a very useful evergreen native to Connecticut is the Great Laurel also known as Rhododendron maximum. Although much of this plant contains poisonous substances and should not be ingested by humans or animals, Native Americans living in Connecticut use parts of this shrub medicinally.

About the Great Laurel
The Great Laurel is in the Ericaceae (Heath Family) and is a loose, open broadleaf evergreen with multiple trunks with branches that grow up and out.  One thing that distinguished this plant from other rhododendron species is its dark blue-green leathery leaves which grow to be the largest of all native rhododendrons.   In Connecticut, this plant grows up to 15 feet and can grow up to 40 feet in good conditions.  The Great Laurel is usually found in wet woods and in swamps. It is native to the eastern United States from Alabama north to Nova Scotia.

This evergreen has showy bell-shaped flowers that appear in clusters of 15 to 25 blossoms in June-July.  The flower size is 1 1/2 to 2 inches across and is pale pink to white with green or orange spots. Today this plant is often grown as an ornamental and is the hardest of all evergreen rhododendrons.  This species responds to subfreezing temperatures in an interesting way.  It curls and folds down its leaves in order to protect the shrub from the drying effects of cold air, making it one of nature's thermostats! This plant is clonal and can reproduce by layering and by seed generation.

Medicinal Uses
The Cherokee made a compound of this plant and use it as an analgesic in the form of a liniment for pain.  They also make a poultice of the leaves of this plant that was used to treat headaches. An infusion of leaves is used to relieve the pain from scratches. In ceremonies, clumps of the leaves are thrown into a fire before dancing around it in order to bring about cold weather.

Did you know...

Honey made from flowers of this plant is toxic!

The wood from the Great Laurel is occasionally used for tool handles.

Another name for the Great Laurel is the Rosebay Rhododendron.

Rhododendron maximum is the state flower of West Virginia.