Fringe Tree – striving to survive
With showy sprays of snow-white blooms as attractive as those of any tree, fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) should be more widely planted. And of native North American trees long appreciated for their aesthetic value, perhaps none is as little known for its medicinal benefits as Chionanthus. Fringe Tree, Ole Man’s Beard, Grand-Daddy Gray Beard, Snow Flower, Snowdrop Tree, and even the illogical “Poison Ash,” are but a few common names applied to this tree. It is a member of the Oleaceae (Olive family).
A small deciduous tree to 30 feet in height, ranging from northern Florida to Texas, north through southeastern Oklahoma, northern Arkansas and Missouri, east to Pennsylvania. It grows along stream and riverbanks as well as dry sandy outcrops.
In the Ozarks it grows on mountaintops on ledges that are constantly moist from autumn through spring, though very dry in summer months. In Eureka Spring it can be found blooming in the confines of the Eureka Springs Native Plant Garden Project. Fringe tree is now blooming along the trails at Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville.
The snow-white “fringed” flowers spark both the common and Latin names for the plant. The genus name Chionanthus derives from the Greek chion (snow) and anthus, meaning flower. It is pronounced key-O-nan’-thus.
Now rarely recognized as a medicinal plant, in the late 19th century fringe tree bark was an important item in the pharmacy of Eclectic physicians, a group of doctors who treated with and introduced many American medicinal plants. Lloyd Brothers, Pharmacists, Inc., of Cincinnati, claims it was the second best-selling American medicinal plant among physicians of the late 19th century (second to Echinacea). Fringe tree was the Eclectic remedy of choice for jaundice and other liver ailments.
The leaves contain levels of the antioxidant polyphenol, oleuropein, comparable to those found in olive leaf extracts. This same group of compounds also found in olives and olive oils are responsible for bitter, pungent flavor tones. Oleuropein is also anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antiviral, and cholesterol-lowering.
Get to know the fringe tree soon, as like ash trees, also in the olive family, fringe tree is subject to infestation from the hideous invasive bug, the emerald ash borer that has killed billions of ash trees worldwide.