Medicinal Monday - Fool's Huckleberry

This plant goes by several interesting names including false azalea, skunk bush, rusty leaf, mock azalea, and fool's huckleberry. Today it is prized as an ornamental plant especially because of its autumn coloration. There is historical documentation that Native Americans living in Northwestern North America from Alaska through the Pacific Northwest to northwestern California and Wyoming found practical as well as medicinal uses for this showy shrub.

About Fool's Huckleberry

This deciduous shrub can grow to 12 feet tall and has an erect but straggly, spreading look. The branches are often grouped together and when young they have a whorled and glandular appearance, as they get older they have reddish scaly-shredding bark. The bluish-green leaves grow in clusters along rust-colored branches. They are oblong in shape and finely serrated with a central vein that protrudes at the apex. The leaves turn a bright red-orange color in the fall.  When the leaves are crushed they have a skunk-like odor. Both leaves and stems are sticky to the touch. The urn-shaped pinkish-orange flowers hang down in clusters near the end of the branches. The fruit is a dry, ovoid capsule. Fool's Huckleberry can be found in nutrient-rich areas of coniferous forests and along stream banks.

Medicinal Uses

The Hesquiat used this plant as an oral aid and would suck the nectar from the flowers to sweeten their breath. The Kwakiutl chewed the leaves to relieve heart pain and stomach trouble. They also made a poultice of heated leaves and applied them to sores and swellings. The Nitinaht used the bark of this shrub to counteract evil spells.

The Quileute wove the twigs of this shrub together with cedar bark and used it for grills on the bottom of their canoes. The Nitinaht made slingshots from the branches of this shrub as well as a variety of children's toys.

Socially, the Quileute would break off a forked twig from Fool's Huckleberry and wave it in the air by a woman to make a man fall in love with her. 

Did You Know...

The white-banded black moth is a predator of this shrub.

Fools Huckleberry is poisonous to cats, dogs, horses, and other animals because the leaves contain grayanotoxins. Signs of poison include abdominal pain, irregular heartbeat, involuntary muscle contractions, and coma that can lead to death.

The andromedotoxins in the leaves make them poisonous to humans

It is referred to as false azalea because its leaves bear some resemblance to those of azalea.