The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) has released a brochure highlighting good stewardship harvesting practices for slippery elm (Ulmus rubra), a native deciduous tree found mainly in the moist bottomlands, stream banks, and rich forest soils of the central and eastern United States. The tree is widely traded for the medicinal properties of its inner bark.

The new guidance document was produced as part of AHPA’s educational efforts supporting the herbal community, and is available for free download from the AHPA website.

“Slippery elm furnishes one of North America’s most important herbal tree barks, and most of this raw material originates from wild harvesting,” said Eric P. Burkhart, PhD, professor at Penn State University. “This new AHPA publication provides excellent stewardship and harvest guidance to ‘bark pullers’ throughout the wild range of this species in an effort to encourage sustainability and quality in North American elm bark supply chains.”

Holly Chittum, project scientist at AHPA, led the brochure’s development in collaboration with Nate Brennan of Foster Farm Botnaicals; Josef Brinkmann of the American Botanical Council and Traditional Medicinals (retired); Eric Burkhart, PhD; Jim Chamberlain, PhD, of the U.S. Forest Service (retired); Don Stock of American Botanicals (retired); and Steven Yeager of Mountain Rose herbs.

AHPA previously published good stewardship harvesting brochures for wild American ginseng, black cohosh, goldenseal, oshá, saw palmetto, Boswellia, and yerba mansa.