Threads 2: The Secrets of Willow

Long before anyone could go to the drugstore and buy a bottle of aspirins, basket makers did not need the pill variety. The secret of willow is that willow bark contains salicylic acid. It was about 400 BC when Hippocrates discovered that when people chewed willow bark it relieved inflammation and fever.

Basketmakers who used willow would absorb this chemical while handling the willow, and they never suffered from pain in their arthritic hands.

Willow bark can also be used as a natural dye. It needs no mordant and dyes wool a lovely shade of brown.

Willow can also be used to help propagate cuttings of other plants to root in water. Cut several short pieces of fresh willow and add them to your plant cuttings.

This is an excellent book about willows. Willows by Christopher Newsholm. Published by B.T.Batsford, Ltd., London.