The Butternut Tree

From "The Youth's Companion or Historical Dictionary" by Ezra Sampson ©1816

BUTTERNUT-TREE, one of the valuable indigenous trees of the United States, which grows luxuriantly in many places, and is sometimes so large as to measure ten feet in circumference. The bark affords, by boiling in water, an extract that is found by experience, to possess a purgative quality. This is safe, gentle, and efficacious ; and when administered in doses, from fifteen to forty grains, operates downwards without griping. The nut of this tree is very rich, esculent and oily: the bark is used for dying cloths with various shades ot brown,—Dr. Mitchell. F 2
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Today 90% of the trees have been killed. The Butternut Tree isn't listed as federally threatened by of "Special Concern" and in New York and Tennessee the are threatened.