White willow tree

Aspirin Salicylate Analgesic, anti-inflammatory Salix alba (white willow tree) and Filipendula ulmaria (meadowsweet)... 

Willow bark. The bark of the white willow tree (Salix alba) has been used as a pain and fever reducer for centuries. The main active ingredient in willow bark is salicin, which the body converts to salicylic acid, a substance that acts like aspirin. In fact, the first stable form of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was made from a related herb called meadowsweet. Salicylic acid inhibits... 

Most people do not realize that many prescription medications are created from similar ingredients and that approximately 25% of all drugs used today are derived from herbs (Greenwald, 1998). Furthermore, many prescription and OTC medications adapt and freely utilize a herbal base in their composition. Aspirin is derived from the bark of the white willow tree, and there is a cancer treatment medication known as Taxol that... 

The bark of the white willow tree. Salixalba) is a source of salicylic acid, from which aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is made. 

Aspirin, prepared industrially by selective electrophilic aromatic substitution of phenol, is arguably the blockbuster drug of all times. Its active metabolite, 2-hydroxybenzoic acid (salicylic acid), obtained from the bark of the white willow tree, has been used for four millennia for the treatment of inflammation and to relieve pain or discomfort caused by arthritis, soft-tissue injuries, and fever. Aspirin was discovered by the German company Bayer in the late 19th century and ironically marketed together with another drug, heroin, whose addictive side effects were not recognized then. 

Sahcyl alcohol [90-01-7] (saligenin, o-hydroxybenzyl alcohol) crystallizes from water in the form of needles or white rhombic crystals. It occurs in nature as the bitter glycoside, saUcin [138-52-3] which is isolated from the bark of Salix helix S. pentandra S. praecos some other species of willow trees, and the bark of a number of species of poplar trees such as Folpulus balsamifera P. candicans and P. nigra. 

In a study of insect-plant relationships at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Crossley (1963) utilized a field nuclear waste site containing Cs. Chrysomela knabi beetle larvae were collected on leaves from willow trees (Salix nigra) growing on White Oak Lake bed. This lake was formerly a low-level waste disposal site at the laboratory, and the sediments contained various radionuclides, including Cs. Consequently, the leaves of the willow tree contained Cs... 

It is very important to select a suitable type of wood for the manufacture of the charcoal used in blackpowder. It must be soft, but not resinous and should be prepared from white wood of such trees as alder, poplar, willow, hazel etc. Before carbonization the wood must be de-barked and cut into pieces 10-30 mm thick. In some countries where hemp is plentiful the stems of this plant are used for making charcoal. 

---