ABSTRACT
This chapter provides information on uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Eastern Black Walnut. Black walnut is one of most valuable natural forest trees in the US The nuts furnish a food product, used mainly for flavoring baked goods, pastries, and confectioneries. The wood has good texture, strength, and is coarse-grained, very durable, of a rich dark-brown color with light sapwood; used in cabinet-making, gun-stocks, interior finishes of houses, furniture, air-planes, ship-building. The bark and leaves are considered alterative, astringent, detergent, laxative, and purgative. They are used for eczema, herpes, indolent ulcers, scrofula. The unripe fruit is sudorific and vermifugal, and used for ague and quinsy, and is rubbed onto cracked palms and ringworm. The genus Juglans is reported to contain the following toxins: folic acid, furfural, inositol, juglone, nicotine, and tryptophane. Wind pollinated, walnut may play a small role in hay fever.
