permaculture

[Jay Woods <woodsjay@cox.net>]

On Sunday, March 06, 2011 07:38:17 pm Jason Gerhardt wrote:
> Does anyone have first hand experience or reliable research regarding
> Kentucky Coffee Tree?  I collected seeds from a large podded legume
> tree on a walk through an abandoned industrial part of town today
> and later determined the species to be Kentucky Coffee Tree.  This
> tree must be extremely rare here on the Front Range of CO as I've
> never seen anything like it.  The USDA website says it is NOT a
> known N-fixer.  This was disappointing to learn, as I thought I was
> stumbling upon a low maintenance, no water, broadleaf n-fixer.  If
> anyone has contrary info please let me know.  Also if anyone has
> experimented with the seed pod or seed edibility that would be great
> info to have.

The URLs I have collected are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnocladus_dioicus
http://www.library.illinois.edu/vex/toxic/kentucky/kentucky.htm
http://www.heterocycles.jp/library/abstract.php?doi=20267
http://herb.umd.umich.edu/ [Search for Gymnocladus dioicus]

One of the trees showed up on my place. It took several years before I 
had a seed pod and could identify it. Since various parts of the tree 
have been used as food and medicine and the active ingredient (not 
cytisine but dioicine) has been misidentified until 2009 the actual 
toxicity of the tree parts is suspect. 

> Thanks in advance,
> Jason
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe, unsubscribe, change your user configuration or find out
> more about this list here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> permaculture forums http://www.permies.com/permaculture-forums
> List contacts: permacultureforum@gmail.com and paul@richsoil.com