Magnolia Benefits with Leslie Williams

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This is the first time I’ve sat down with Leslie, and I enjoyed listening to her winding story of learning about herbs through the decades!  I was equally amazed by the extensive information she shared about the medicinal benefits of magnolia.  She really opened my eyes to the gifts of this beautiful, ancient tree.

Leslie shared several ways to work with magnolia, including her recipe for Magnolia Bark Oxymel (and you’ll hear how Leslie uses it both internally and externally). You can find a beautifully illustrated recipe card for Leslie’s oxymel in the section below.

When might you turn to magnolia?  Here are just a few ways this stunning tree can be worked with to benefit your health:

► To help moderate diabetes

► As a pain-relieving tea or ointment

► To help quit smoking tobacco

And there are so many more benefits to this wonderful tree medicine!  Tune in for all the details.

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► Which parts of the magnolia tree are used in medicine-making

► Three different digestive issues that can be helped by magnolia

► How magnolia can help you get a good night’s sleep

► The types of pain that can be relieved by magnolia

► Five different ways of working with magnolia for food and medicine, including a yummy pickle!

► and so much more…

For those of you who don’t know her, Leslie Williams, RH (AHG), M.Ed. (UGA), is an experienced herbalist who finds wisdom in conversations with trees and rivers. She believes that herbalism is the best work in the world, full of both delights and heartaches. Growing up in the woods and swamps of north Florida, she spent her childhood plowing with a horse and wildcrafting meals. Leslie is trained in basic Five Element Theory and Ayurveda, as well as rural Southern herbalism, and has spent years reading worldwide clinical research. With 58 years of Zen meditation and many years in recovery, she brings a wealth of knowledge and personal experience to her practice.

I’m excited to share our conversation with you today!

-- TIMESTAMPS --

• 01:10 - Introduction to Leslie Williams
• 02:34 - How Leslie found her plant path, including her takeaways from reading ancient herbal texts
• 30:45 - Magnolia’s medicinal gifts
• 40:03 - Magnolia Bark Oxymel recipe, and other oxymels Patricia loves
• 44:53 - Pickled magnolia flowers
• 45:52 - Leslie’s current herbal projects
• 48:48 - What Leslie wishes she knew when she began her herbal path
• 53:11 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Connect with Leslie

• Website | Ordinary Herbalist
• Facebook | Leslie Williams

Transcript of the 'Magnolia Benefits with Leslie Williams' Video

Rosalee de la Forêt:
Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as
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Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay, grab your cup of tea and let’s dive in.

I feel like I’ve kind of known Leslie for as long as I’ve been an herbalist. She’s always been around in the internet ethers, but this is the first time I’ve sat down with her and I was so enthralled. Leslie’s winding story of learning about herbs through the decades was fascinating, and a reminder of how hard it was to find herbal information not that long ago. I loved how she learned things so organically. Anyway, I’ll let you listen in on all about that. I was also intrigued by her extensive information about magnolia as herbal medicine. I adore this tree. It’s so beautiful, absolutely stunning. Now, I just have a whole other level of appreciation for it.

For those of you who don’t already know her, Leslie Williams is an experienced herbalist who finds wisdom in conversations with trees and rivers. She believes that herbalism is the best work in the world, full of both delights and heartaches. Growing up in the woods and swamps of North Florida, she spent her childhood plowing with a horse and wildcrafting meals. Leslie is trained in basic Five Element Theory in Ayurveda, as well as rural Southern herbalism, and has spent years reading worldwide clinical research. With 58 years of Zen meditation and many years of recovery, she brings a wealth of knowledge and personal experience to her practice.

Leslie, I’m so thrilled to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. 

Leslie Williams:

I’m really happy to be here and to be a part of this. I really appreciate your asking me. Thank you. 

Rosalee de la Forêt: 

It’s an absolute pleasure. I’m so excited to talk about tree medicine. I’m so excited to talk about magnolia, one of my very favorite trees. I’m also excited to hear your story because it’s not one that I know, so I’d love to hear how you got started in all this.

Leslie Williams:

I guess you have to keep my introductions to three to five minutes, so it’s going to be—you’re going to have to probably rein me in at some point, so that I don’t spend an hour just telling about the fun I’ve had being an herbalist for 50 years. Let me get going, and then leave time for magnolia for sure, because I’m really excited to spread the word about it.

Now, at the moment, I live outside Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve lived a lot of places around the country and the world. I grew up in North Florida. Both my grandparents had—both sides of them had small farms. We were poor, but we just didn’t realize it. We grew up. I grew up foraging for all kinds of wild berries and wild foods, gardening, driving a tractor and herding cows. That kind of stuff that you just did. I learned how to plow with a horse, which was a skill not many people have anymore. Canning and then using home remedies. My family wasn’t very keen on going to the doctor. Unless we couldn’t stop the bleeding or something, we took care of it at home. So, that was nuts and berries, whatever there was.

My family was kind of unusual. They were—my mom ended up going to night school and getting a PhD, but she also could see auras and she could witch water with a forked stick. There’s a lot of the old South in there too, in the old traditions. Because we lived on a river, but there were lakes. There were creeks. We spend a lot of summers with kinfolk up in western North Carolina. The woods were always my safe place. That was the best place to be always. I think that really helped a lot too. If my mom thought you were getting a cold, she took you to the beach because—and it easily worked. Going to the beach in North Florida was pretty good remedy. That was a really good start for me with herbal medicine because it worked and because we did it ourselves. That was probably the best. It was a good childhood that way.

As an undergraduate, I didn’t know what to do, so I majored in Latin and Greek. I took seven years of Latin in high school and college, and then I learned classical Greek. I’ve read all of the old herb books that a lot of European and North American herbalism is built on in the original. I don’t think I’d do it again, but I have read them. That was a real push too because they were talking about all the plants that we use now still, all the Mediterranean plants, especially, and a lot from North Africa and the Middle East.

Then after that I worked in food coops and that was really my gateway into the whole thing of being an herbalist I think, because there were food coops. They were everywhere all through the ‘70s, into the ‘80s. I started in Athens, Georgia at People’s Foods. We had an herb department, of course. We helped a lot of the food coops all around the country, started Frontier actually, at the time, because we couldn’t get herbs that weren’t irradiated that were clean. It was started as a coop back in the day. There used to be great—every summer, Frontier had a big party and lots of folks. I used to go out there to meet other herbalists. I met West Coast herbalists up there in Iowa, Norway. That was a really good thing, and then food coops, and then I ended up moving through a few more food coops to Atlanta, which was Sevananda, which was a great mother of food coops in the ‘70s.

We were the biggest herb department this side of Boulder where Brigitte Mars was running an herb department. Over here on the East Coast, Sevananda was the place—we’re bigger than even Boston. I had 500 bulk herbs. People would come into the store seven days a week and they’d say, “What’s this good for?” As I work my way up, which I did pretty fast, I had to learn what they were good for. Luckily, we had a book department as well, so I just read everything that was in print, which wasn’t all that much. There was Dr. Christopher and Alma Hutchens, and a few odd things, but not a lot of resources. I’ve learned so much from the people that came into the store. This was—a lot of, especially older people, white and black, here in urban Atlanta, which was the most cosmopolitan place I knew at the time, really, who would tell me what they use things for. I just was going to totally learn that from them. I would also have to go home at night and figure out the answer to the next question, so I could tell them next time they came in.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

So, you just go home and you Google it? Is that what you’re…

Leslie Williams:

Yeah, right. Not so much. No. Wouldn’t that be nice? No, no. As I got to know more herbalists, there weren’t that many. There were probably just as many here as there were on the West Coast or up East. There was that whole gang that started the American Herbalist Guild on the West Coast, and then New York, New Jersey, New England there was a group. There were lots of us down here. We just never marketed. We never got to marketing that most of the rest of the country got. 

Anyway, food coops were really, really big step for me, and working then as natural food and herbs got to be an industry. The companies that were there like Bach flower remedies, were like, “We want to train you to understand Bach flower remedies,” so now, we’d always go, “Train me. Take me for five days and train me,” or all the homeopathic companies or different places. I learned a lot even from the corporate up and coming people. We used to sell Rosemary Gladstar’s Traditional Medicinals when it was in the brown paper bag. That was something we just never knew was ever going to make it. So, fun to see. And K.P. Khalsa, when we were all young, all these people, we would see each other at the annual Natural Food Expo, of course, all through the years.

I learned a lot too from my brother, Sy, and a lot of his friends at Short Mountain. They were called the “Radical Faeries.” They were mostly men who went back to the land and really just wanted to throw out most of the rules that there were, but they were really good farmers. Actually, if you know of a lot of the fermenting books, a lot of them started out there with the faeries in Short Mountain. I learned a lot from them because they were living on the land. They were totally interested in herb things and they were encouraging me. We all sent off and got our reverend papers from mail, $10. Actually, it might have been free. I was the Reverend Leslie Williams, so that if the FDA came—because they use to come and try to arrest people. We knew people that got arrested for practicing herbalism, so we would always do it in the name of, “This is our faith.” I still have my paper from back there in the ‘70s.

Then in the early ‘80s, I had a teacher, an herb teacher, who had studied with William LeSassier. Actually, they were housemates. He’s an herbalist still too. David Winston studied with him a little. He studied with William later, but my teacher, Paul Olko, was incredible. He’s still an incredible herbalist. He taught triune theory, so I learned that really early on to formulate herbs in crazy and wonderful ways of nine herbs in many triangles, as well as Chinese theory and a lot of Ayurveda. As the years went by, I ended up working for an international Ayurvedic herb company, so I had to go back and actually study Ayurveda. I used to fall asleep in class. I thought it was silly. That’s why I ended up taking East West course because I had a job where I had to know what I was talking about. I had slept through too many classes, so that helped a lot.

I moved to Cincinnati and for about four or five years, I was just about two miles from the Lloyd Library, if you know what that is, from the Eclectic physicians in the last century and a half, almost two. They were the Herbalist of the Day. They were pretty sane in a lot of ways. A lot of herbalists through the years, even Jeanne Rose, have donated their herbal collection of books to the Lloyd Library. I could just go down there and read. That helped my education a whole lot more, actually. That was amazing. 

Before that, I had studied with Paul for two years. We had an underground clinic here in Atlanta, literally, in someone’s basement. We did a lot of clinical training. He was really good. We learned all the old stuff, like iridology. A lot of Chinese facial lines, what does that mean? Also, just practice doing intakes and working with people. It was great. So, the Lloyd Library, yes.

Beyond that, I worked in some other stores. I also worked for a company. A friend of mine in my neighborhood, actually, who was a cosmetic chemist, started a company and knew that I was an herbalist and so she asked me help. I was just starting a business called, “Kate Soap,” which ended up being an international body care company, but we sold it eventually. Mostly, we did make soap, as well as a whole line of native plant body care stuff, all kinds of clean things and herb formulas. I worked for them and they ended up probably being the first company that really took me seriously. A lot of my friends still tease me about neem because if we don’t know what to do, I’ll just say put neem on it, it will be fine. We were importing it. We had organic farms in India. We were importing it, organic neem, here to make product as well as Ayurvedic formulas from India. I learned a lot more about Ayurvedic working really with that--doing that and formulating stuff too. I had been doing that. Where I’ve worked I ended up formulating although I wasn’t really smart enough to say that I’d like a percentage of this in the future. I formulated these great formulas that you now sell. It was all good. It was just all good.

After that, I did—I worked a lot of music festivals around the country, mostly women’s music festivals. So, you’d have 4,000 folks sometimes off the grid. Sometimes we’d have minimal electricity. Some of them were back-to-the-land people. Some of them lived in cities, but it was like I’d be there for probably four weeks. The festival would only be like five days. Everyone who had never been to a doctor in a year would come to the—it wasn’t really first aid kit. It was healthcare. Volunteers could come. We had volunteers work healthcare a lot of times from all over the world. I’ve worked with doctors from all different countries. I’ve worked with people like chiropractors, probably things you wouldn’t like. I grew up in the South, so I’m not that opposed to laying on of hands. I’m not a big fan of holding snakes, but laying on of hands as healing, I do take seriously.

I did see pretty interesting things from people who would work with us in healthcare, but we didn’t usually have a lot of terrible first aid, but a lot of too much partying and that kind of thing. Some people would bring their kids and they hadn’t been to doctors, so it was an incredible education every summer, spending several weeks on the land with whoever showed up. It was a real diverse group of people, let’s just say.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

And that was primarily herbs that was being worked with?

Leslie Williams:

Herbs was a primary thing. We didn’t have a pharmacy or anything. We mostly had herbs.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Where were you getting all those herbs? That’s a lot of herbs.

Leslie Williams:

We get a lot of donations. We would ask people we knew. We would ask the herb companies probably before Mountain Rose, but once Mountain Rose came, they were always helpful. Frontier always gave us a lot. Sometimes even herb shops would give us things. We just really had not much budget, but we made it work. It was useful because if suddenly, one year, someone who was supposed to lead healthcare at a nearby conference couldn’t come and they said, “Will you run it this year? Because we know you know how to do it.” I was like, “Yeah, sure.” There were all these herbs I had not selected and I’m like, “I’ve never worked with these herbs,” so it made me have to learn three dozen more herbs that weren’t my daily favorite go-to, so it was really good.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It reminds me of your early days at the food coop too. You’re [crosstalk]

Leslie Williams:

A lot. [Crosstalk]

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. I have to learn now.

Leslie Williams:

Now, I have to learn these things exactly. I took about four years off from pretty much herb stuff. I got a job for Air Canada, the airline. I did that because I really wanted to travel and I was pretty sure as an herbalist that wasn’t going to happen to the extent that I wanted to travel, so I worked on computers. I wasn’t a flight attendant or a pilot. In Tampa, Florida, I worked, but it meant that I could go on my days off or my weeks off or my holidays. I could travel a whole lot and that worked out. I’ve seen a lot of botanical gardens around the world, a lot of little herb shops, a lot of grocery stores in little towns, in other countries. That was a real bounty, but the thing that I didn’t plan on working for the airlines, basically, was in a big call center with a few hundred people. Every single person there was completely stressed and they needed an herbalist, so I was so busy off shift because I suddenly had all these clients who were—they would do anything I suggested. They realized how stressed they were.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

When you say you took four years off, your four years off was-

Leslie Williams:

It wasn’t really off.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

[Crosstlalk] the people that you worked with and travel around to see herb gardens and herb shops.

Leslie Williams:

Yeah, it wasn’t really off at all. No, I wasn’t working in an herb shop or for a company, an international company or doing that. No.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s still once-an-herbalist-always-an-herbalist kind of thing.

Leslie Williams:

I know. When I worked doing the neem, I did write a lot of press releases about neem that you probably could still find in a lot of magazines and things that got published because no one knew anything about it. It was our job to make sure people did know what it was. Yeah, that was definitely useful in product development, educating people in any store that sold our products. We used to have online classes, so they would know what are these Ayurvedic formulas. I didn’t know. They’re just in their little herb shop. So, anyway-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

All of that is so fascinating, Leslie. Something my mind is going back to is back to the very beginning when you were talking about how you’ve read all these—our ancient classic herbal. You’ve read them in their original language. I don’t think there’s a lot of herbalists who can say they’ve read them in English, much less in the original form. I’m wondering if you have any takeaway? Something that stuck with you that you found that was interesting through that process? I basically want the cheat sheets, but I don’t have to read them in their originals, but I want you to tell me.  

Leslie Williams:

You don’t want to read. We do need Cliffsnotes for those. The translations I’ve read are not that great. I’m not sure what to say. It has all come down to us pretty clearly from the Greeks, especially, because the Greeks were so great. As a classics major, I can honestly say they stole from everybody. They stole from the Persians. They stole from the North Africans. They stole from Egypt. Even from some as far away as India because of the Silk Road. Their medicine is not just local. They were really smart. As people came there—it was a trade center, plus, Alexander the Great was conquering the world, there was a lot of commerce and so, they learned incredible amounts of herbalism and wrote it down, which was what they did great. The Romans, basically, took the Greek model and just reinstalled it in Latin. They did think about it. They were pretty deep thinkers. The Greeks were really the ones who put it all together. I’m sorry about the Alexandria Library in Egypt burning, because we probably would have a lot more information than that.

The other part that we don’t talk about and I didn’t realize until much later was there’s lots of new translations of Persian and Arabian medicine, and Iranian—what’s now Iran was Persia. They’re coming out now with really good translations and that’s really good medicine. A lot of the planting zones, which you live in Zone 7 or B or whatever, a lot of the planting zones go all the way around, so a lot of the same plants in China, in Korea, grow here, which has been really the best thing, I think. We can learn the traditions of the plants which now live here. Like it or not, they might be invasive, but they’re here so we should learn to use them.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s interesting that there’s a lot of great translations of Persian medicine coming out because I know the Iranian has a lot of great current day researches coming from Iran.

Leslie Williams:

It’s great! The last 10 years have been a bounty of research coming out of there. It’s true. I worked several years and all I did was collect. I had spent my life on PubMed because the company had to have documentation for everything they sold as a supplement. There had to be research to back up anything we said. My job was to find the research. It was great. I still do it because it was just enjoyable. There’s new stuff all the time, and some of the new stuff is a thousand years old. It’s just not been here. Part of that too, I think is I grew up in the rural South mostly and I went to grad school in the rural South. Even in community education, which is pretty much what I do as an herbalist. So, that was useful.

I did finally join the Herbalist Guild. My friend, Patricia Howell, kind of nagged me until finally, I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” None of my clients really ever asked me at all, but it seemed fun so I did that. I served on the board for a while for the Guild. I served on the admissions committee for people. Now, I like to say I’m retired from that. I’m working on some other things.

The one thing I have done and the reason I like having an RH is because I’ve gotten invited to teach at conferences all over the country, and I like that. I like teaching. It’s just so important. I have taught what—I don’t know if you ever heard of it—the Herbalist Round Table, with Leslie Alexander? “The Leslies” we go by? The Leslies. We’re the most different people. She has a PhD in scientific toxicology research and a very good herbalist for 20 years. She studied with Richard Mandelbaum. It’s taken a while. I’m a person that I’m really grounded in a lot of folk remedies, but also, the hard science is really important and research, not to mention the woo. I’m really into the spirit end of it as well. Whatever anyone thinks, I still am.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that you’re combining all of it. That’s wonderful.

Leslie Williams:

It’s a mash up, yes. I’ve lived on that 12 years. First, it was in person, but we both moved. We do it online. People get to practice clinical. There are not many places for people to do that. I still do that and it’s really amazing to get together with nine herbalists and everyone does their spin on a case. That’s been a real meaningful thing I’ve done. Now, I teach a one year class locally because I’m tired of—I’ve taught a lot online over the years. I lived in Maine for a while. I kind of had to. I do plant walks. Now, I’m working on a couple of books. I see clients if they’re really friends of mine or if they have a really difficult—people with chemo, people with lupus, a lot of autoimmune conditions.

Also, when I was 30, I started in recovery. It was really important to me to not lean as heavily into tinctures as the culture of herbalism was doing. I teach tinctures and I’m not afraid of tinctures. I have alcohol in my office, but I don’t drink. I work with a lot of people who are in recovery. I’ve had this learn a lot of ways, delivery systems for herbs for people, their convenience, but that are also going to be safe whether they’re trying to get over an alcohol addiction or heroin or meth or everything else that’s out there this week, working with them, knowing the herbs that are going to be useful and effective and safe. That’s been a big part of my practice as well.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting. 

Leslie Williams:

It is interesting.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m excited to talk about the recipe that you’re going to share with us because it’s a non-alcoholic recipe, but before we get to the recipe, we should get to magnolia. You’re well-known for your tree medicine. I, personally, love magnolia just as a tree of beauty--those flowers unfurling in the springtime before the leaves come out. Anyway, I’m all here for–I’m all for it. Let’s hear about magnolia.

Leslie Williams:

Let’s hear about magnolia. You’re in Eastern Washington, aren’t you?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s right, yeah.

Leslie Williams:

I lived in Spokane for a while, so I know kind of what’s there. What kind of magnolia do you have there?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

There is none in the valley where I live, actually.

Leslie Williams:

None?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

None. So, it’s a tree—we’re in Zone 4. It’s a tree that I admire from afar.

Leslie Williams:

I know there are some further down the West Coast, but I didn’t know if they were up that far. I know when I lived in Maine, there were quite a few magnolias up in that zone, but none of them were native except maybe occasionally, I would find liriodendron, tulip poplar magnolia, basically. I can talk a lot about the magnolias. I want to say a lot of herb books that I came up on—and there is, thankfully, better choices now—were so Eurocentric. They were so strong on the European herbs. There’s nothing wrong with the European herbs at all or trees, but the North American herbs that are native here and the medicines from here didn’t get a lot of press. I’ll just say. I do like to work with what’s nearby. I fell into trees pretty early on because we have a lot of trees. I like trees. Probably, I tell people more than people, I like trees.

There’s a long history of use for magnolia. I first learned about it—it must have been in the ‘80s. There was a lot of research on it for helping people quit smoking tobacco. I can’t say that it’s the greatest thing to help quit smoking tobacco, but some people found it useful as a tea. First, let me say too, there’s lot of kinds of magnolia. There’s a lot of research out there and a lot of history. Magnolia officinalis, Chinese magnolia, which is almost extinct because it’s been so overharvested. If you look in a lot of Chinese materia medicas like Bensky, you can look, there’s a whole column on magnolia. It’s pretty good because it has been used in China and they’re all used in similar ways. They vary.

All the magnolias, you use the flowers and the bark, generally, not the leaves. The buds though--you can use the buds. Leaves, flowers and bark--all of those are bitter and so, magnolia is useful as a bitter in bitters. It’s got a long history, especially in China, for upset digestion, whether it’s nausea or diarrhea or bloating or just a need for bitters. Gall bladder, liver, fatty liver, that kind of thing, magnolia is very effective. It has just a huge, long history of use. The bark is stronger than the flowers. It’s also an aromatic. If you start working with it, it will make a dark red tincture. It smells aromatic the way cinnamon would, maybe.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, wow.

Leslie Williams:

Not quite like cinnamon, but it’s got the same kind of aura about it. Anyway, it’s an aromatic tonic bitter. It’s also relaxing. In Chinese medicine, it’s used in formulas for depression. I’ve taken it and used it for a lot of other things. If you look in Mormon, in Native North American Madison, it’s got such a long history of use for anxiety, respiratory problems, cramps, seasonal allergies. These are things that are hard-to-find-things that really work for seasonal allergies, gingivitis. It’s moderating for diabetes. It’s moderating actually for autoimmune conditions. It’s got a pretty broad base.

Natively, we have cucumber magnolia. We have ash magnolia. We have sweetbay magnolia. There are a lot of native magnolias, but they’re not in your neighborhood. I’m sorry. What I’ve really found because I don’t really like going out and chopping up native trees that are in decline, people plant all these ornamental magnolias in their yard, at least, from here to Northern Maine, at least as far as Wisconsin. I know there are some in Southern California, but they grow in Maine. They have great pink flowers, saucer magnolias, lily magnolias. There’s a million varieties of them and they’re hardy as can be. The flowers come on first and then the leaves. These are Korean, Chinese and Japanese magnolias, but the more you start seeing them, the more you realize they’re everywhere in people’s yards. They are amazing medicine. I’ve had to dig in to Japanese and Korean medicine as well. They say pretty much the same thing. They’re really good anti-anxiety, anti-cramps. Good, good for if you overeat, overdrink, that kind of thing. I use the native ones the most. Star magnolia is a native. The saucer magnolia, the pink ones, actually, if you can get those, the bark, you can just use the twigs as long as they’re smaller than your little finger. You can use a whole twig, just cut it up, put it in a cup of tea or put it in a jar with your alcohol, 40% is fine to make a tincture, or put it in vinegar, apple cider vinegar, 5% acidity. And there you go. Let it sit there for a while. I’ll talk about some more attributes just for a minute.

Magnolia is anti-microbial against staph, strep and shigella. It’s so useful. Anti-viral, also used for pain relief. I wouldn’t use it for bone pain, that kind of pain, but it’s good for tooth pain. It’s good for achy joints pain a lot. The way I’ve used it the most is for muscle pain and back pain. If you just extract the twigs in vinegar, use it as a liniment. Just rub it on. You might want to add some blue vervain or skullcap, but it’s fine by itself. Magnolia bark, magnolia twigs as a liniment if you have muscle pain, cramps – it’s great. You can also drink the tea. The tea is very effective. The ornamental magnolias are probably the most sleep-inducing. I’ve worked with a lot of people with chronic insomnia and found that a cup of magnolia bark tea before bed—it could be a small cup. It doesn’t have to be real big, can really relax the anxiety they hold in their body enough that they can sleep.

Rosalee de la Forêt: 

A lot of tension-relieving, like anxious person, anxiety often will tense this up, you mention it for cramps and back spasms, a very much of a tension-releasing quality.

Leslie Williams:

That’s why I think people that do a lot of heavy work to the back, they get muscle pulls in their back or their legs. It’s so good for that. It just keeps going back to it, it really does work. The way that it’s probably the tastiest--it’s pretty tasty as an alcohol tincture. The recipe that I gave you is-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let’s chat about it.

Leslie Williams:

Huh?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let’s chat about it.

Leslie Williams:

Let’s chat about it! Okay.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

The oxymel.

Leslie Williams:

The oxymel. So, you’ve already got your extracted vinegar of the bark or the twigs. I would never use bark if I can get twigs. I’m not going to go peel a bark off a tree. If there’s a branch, then I might peel the branch if it comes down in a storm, but I’m not going to go take the side off of a tree. Anyway, the twigs are great. It has pretty nice hunky, chunky twigs that are really easy. They smell really good. All you have to do—you can use a folk method. You don’t have to weigh and measure with this, with an oxymel. Cover it. Let it sit. If you’re in a huge rush, you could put it in your Crockpot for 24 hours. Be sure either put it outside or put a lid on it because then, otherwise, your whole house will smell like vinegar, and people, if you live with someone else, will complain. It’s easy enough to just let it sit. It does a great job and you’ll see it change color. Strain it out.

Oxymels are tricky. You’ll see if you look up recipes for oxymels, some of them will say, “50% vinegar extract, 50% honey.” Some people will say different amounts. You have to do it to taste because every tree is different every time of year, and you’re going to get a different extract. So, you really have to be an herbalist, taste it and decide. Some people I know who are very good herbalists who you know, and–actually one of my apprentices—they like to make their oxymels by putting the honey in at the very beginning. That’s fine if they want to do that, but because I never know how sweet it’s going to be and I don’t have a tolerance for things that are super sweet, I like to wait and just put in a little at a time until I’m happy. Also, if someone is diabetic and they’re really careful about their blood sugar, you can use glycerin instead of honey. It’s not going to impact their levels of blood sugar glucose levels.

Rosalee de la Forêt: 

That’s a great tip.

Leslie Williams:

That’s really important. It’s important to remember too that you can—I don’t want to get off topic too far—but you can make some of the best oxymels. Magnolia makes an excellent one. Willow bark makes a fantastic oxymel for pain. It works pretty long, probably longer than—it takes a little slower to work, but it lasts longer than-

Rosalee de la Forêt: 

Interesting.

Leslie Williams:

Alcohol tincture, if you want to time-release it. There are some other things. Rose hips make fantastic oxymel. Anyway, that’s another whole class, I guess.

Rosalee de la Forêt: 

It’s another whole class.

Leslie Williams:

I don’t want to take up too much time on that, but they’re amazing. I know there was quite the generation where everyone wanted tinctures. There’s no–oxymels aren’t shelf-stable. Vinegars, glycerins aren’t shelf-stable. I’ve had glycerin last five years is fine. No problem. An oxymel will lose a little of its zing after a year or a year and a half, but it still works. It’s just the vinegar doesn’t have that edge to it that we like.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s fabulous. This is going to be a fun recipe for people to try out and I can’t wait to hear what folks think.

Leslie Williams:

I hope so.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

So, if you want to download your recipe, you can go do that at herbswithrosaleepodcast.com. We have a beautiful illustrated recipe for you. You’ll see all the ingredients and all the How Tos.

Leslie Williams: 

If you identify a magnolia, which is pretty easy when they’re blooming, there’s nothing else like them. We have southern magnolias here. I really don’t use them because I don’t like how they taste, but I love all the rest of them, the native magnolias as well, especially the ornamentals because they actually do taste really good. They are really useful for sleep. The flowers you can pickle them like ginger. There are some good recipes on YouTube. I should have sent you one, but you can pickle them. There are students of mine who have decided that if you make a tincture of magnolia while it’s blooming, if you get twigs while it’s blooming, it’s going to maybe have more hormonal balancing effect, let’s just say. I don’t know, but it makes a really good pickle--the buds as well as just the flower petals. All it is is vinegar, sugar, a little bit of salt, and they’re delicious.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. Thank you for sharing so much about magnolia. I knew that it was worked with for anxiety and maybe for sleep, but you’ve really opened my eyes to this beautiful, beautiful tree. Speaking of trees, I hear that you’re working on your book, Tree Medicine.

Leslie Williams: 

The Tree Medicine book, yes. Exactly, I am working on it. It’s got to get smaller now, so that it can be life size, not so big. Yes, I’m working on the-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Or you could make it volumes 1 and 2 and 3.

Leslie Williams:

That might happen, absolutely.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s wonderful, really. Looking forward to hearing about that when that is published. We have to have you back on the show to talk about other tree medicine. Do you have other projects that you’d like to share that you’re working on?

Leslie Williams:

I do have another project that I’m very obsessed with and that is—I think it’s going to be a book. It’s on herbalism for old people because as we age, and as an old person—and a lot of my clients now, because they’re my friends, are old people too whether you want to call them “elders” or not. Most of them don’t really want to be old, so they don’t like it, but we’re old. Let’s be real. We’re happy we lasted this long. All of the dosage that we learn as herbalists is not going to apply to someone 70 years old. It’s wrong. Our digestion is going to be slower. We’re not going to metabolize the same way. Circulation is completely different. Blood pressure levels are not the same as what the “normal” is at your regular doctor. This is all known. I’m not making any of this up. I’ve worked with a friend of mine who’s a nurse practitioner as well on some of the science of it. 

I’m working on an herbal book in nutrition too, how to be an herbalist for yourself, as well as for professionals who work with old people and want their practice to be a little more on point, not just general herbalism from 18 to 80. So, there’s that.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s very important. I’m very excited that you’re working on this and looking forward to that.

Leslie Williams:

I know. I know. People tell me they go and get a bone density scan, a DEXA scan. They go to their doctor and they say, “Here are your numbers.” “Only 10% chance of breaking your hip next year. If it gets worse, come in and we’ll give you some drugs.” They’re like, “But what can I do so I don’t break my hip?” That’s our work – to explain and educate people.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I also want to hear more about this book. Is it getting published? So, we have to stay in touch, Leslie.

Leslie Williams:

Okay. Sure.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Before you leave–I’m really excited for this last question for you because I’m truly curious what your answer will be. This last question is, what do you wish you had known when you were first starting out with herbs?

Leslie Williams:

That it was the best job in the world! I didn’t really–it was like a hobby. It was like my recreation. It wasn’t a serious real thing. I had to have a real J O B. What I’ve learned—I wish I learned it sooner—is that yes, I can be an herbalist. Whatever else I’m doing, even if I have a day job or a night job–which I’ve certainly had through the years sometimes—to own it and be an herbalist, and do the work of it because you’re never done learning. It’s so wonderful. You’re always going to be a student of herbs. It’s also the best people in the world, really. I think that’s the most important thing I wish I would have known. I had a passion, but I still didn’t–I could have given it a little more early on, I think, when I had all that energy.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You have had an impressive plant path, Leslie. I love that you’ve learned through so many different avenues, just hearing your life story of how you’ve learned about the plants, how you just keep showing up for the plants, all of it. I think that there’s so much teaching in that in itself, really.

Leslie Williams:

Thank you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for sharing so much wisdom about magnolia. It was wonderful to finally meet you in person.

Leslie Williams:

It was great to meet you in person too, because I have always sung your praises but I have never actually talked to you. I don’t go to conferences out west very often, so yes. Good. I’m so glad you’re in the world and doing this work.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s how I feel about you.

Leslie Williams:

Yay!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much, Leslie.

Leslie Williams:

You’re welcome. Alright.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

As always, thank you so much for being here. Don’t forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above the transcript of this show. Also sign up for my weekly newsletter below, which is the best way to stay in touch. You can also find more from Leslie at ordinaryherbalist.com.

If you’d like more herbal episodes to come your way, then one of the best ways to support this podcast is by subscribing on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

I deeply believe that this world needs more herbalists and plant-centered folks, and I’m so glad that you’re here as part of this herbal community. Also, a big round of thanks to the people all over the world who make this podcast happen week to week:

Nicole Paull is the Project Manager who oversees the whole operation from guest outreach, to writing show notes, to actually uploading each episode and so many other things I don’t even know. She really holds this whole thing together. Francesca is our fabulous video and audio editor. She not only makes listening more pleasant. She also adds beauty to the YouTube videos with plant images and video overlays. Tatiana Rusakova is the botanical illustrator who creates gorgeous plant and recipe illustrations for us. I love them. I know that you do too. Kristy edits the recipe cards and then Jenny creates them, as well as the thumbnail images for YouTube. Alex is our tech support and Social Media Manager, and Karin and Emily are our Student Services Coordinators and Community Support. For those of you who like to read along, Jennifer is who creates the transcripts for us each week. Xavier, my handsome French husband, is the cameraman and website IT guy. It takes an herbal village to make it all happen including you.

One of my favorite things about this podcast is hearing from you. I read every comment that comes in and I’m excited to hear your herbal thoughts on magnolia.

Okay. You have lasted to the very end of the show. Well done. This means you get a gold star and this herbal tidbit:

There’s over 200 species of magnolia trees and these creatures are ancient! They date back around a hundred million years, so that’s pretty amazing. I cannot even fully conceptualize that. I was definitely really wishing I had my own magnolia tree throughout this entire interview. I’ve wished for it for years, and now, I had the inspiration to look it up and I did find magnolia trees for Zone 4! So, now I want to plant my own. I’m already thinking about where I’m going to do that.

If you know me by now, it won’t surprise you that I went over to PubMed to see what studies had been done with magnolia. Unfortunately, I didn’t find many clinical studies at first glance, but I did find this interesting one. It was looking at a combination of natural remedies for menopausal women.

In this study, 44 women received a combination of soy isoflavones, lactobacilli, magnolia bark extract, Vitamin D3, calcium and magnesium. It’s quite the combo there. Then another 45 women were given simply calcium and Vitamin D3. It was found that those who were taking the formulation with the magnolia bark extract had significantly less flushing, nocturnal sweating, palpitations, insomnia, anxiety, mood depression, irritability, vaginal dryness and libido loss, than those who are simply taking the calcium and Vitamin D3.¹

That’s pretty amazing. The study was from 2006. I’d love to see more recent studies looking at this because that’s pretty fascinating.

I’m looking forward to growing my own magnolia tree and working with this beautiful and ancient tree more closely. As always, I’m excited to hear your thoughts on this interview and magnolia. 

Citations for Magnolia Benefits

1. Mucci, M., et al. “Soy Isoflavones, Lactobacilli, Magnolia Bark Extract, Vitamin D3 and Calcium. Controlled Clinical Study in Menopause.” Minerva Ginecologica, vol. 58, no. 4, Aug. 2006, pp. 323–34.