Saskatoon

[Fey]

Saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia)

I’ve just managed to get two Saskatoon seeds to germinate and it looks like they might do okay in the Australian climate. I love it when food plants also turn out to be medicinal plants and this one looks to have an affinity with women and childbirth.

Several parts of the shrub were used medicinally. Concoctions of the inner bark and roots were used to treat diarrhea, dysentery, painful menstruation, and bleeding during pregnancy. A warm decoction of the stems and twigs, or bark, was used by the women of the Thompson Indians to treat pain and bleeding after giving birth to a child. A root tea was believed to prevent miscarriage. The fruit was also used, along with spruce tips, blue currants and snowberry leaves and stems, as part of a concoction for gonorrhoea. Some tribes boiled the inner bark of the Saskatoon to produce a remedy for snow-blindness; one drop of the strained fluid was placed in the affected eye three times daily. Fruit concoctions were also used for sore eyes and stomach problems.

This latter use, speaks to the nutritional value of the Saskatoon berries, which has been well researched and documented in our own time. The composition of the Saskatoon berries is often compared to that of the blueberries. The Saskatoon Berries however, has nutritional properties that are significantly higher in protein, fat, fibre, calcium, magnesium, manganese, barium, and aluminum than the blueberries. and are lower in phosphorus and sulfur. Saskatoon berries are also a source of Vitamin A and Vitamin C.

http://www.prairieberries.com/berry.php

I suppose a warm decoction is just a decoction cooled down, otherwise it would just be a warm infusion.

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