© Shutterstock 

What is tree bark? -

Bark is the outer layer of wood that all trees have. Unique in structure and appearance, bark serves to protect the living tree from the environment, disease, and insect attacks. Similar in many ways to our own skin, bark is essential for a tree's survival.

© Shutterstock 

What is tree bark used for? -

For centuries, tree bark has been used in the production of clothing and practical and recreational objects. Its use extends to industrial and medicinal applications, and bark also serves as a medium in art. In fact, tree bark is one of the most versatile of natural materials found on the planet.

© Shutterstock 

Birch bark canoe -

The traditional birchbark canoe was the principal means of water transportation for indigenous peoples of what is now the northeastern part of the United States and neighboring Canada.

© Getty Images 

Birch bark tepee -

Bark stripped from birch was also used by indigenous peoples of southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and the Northern Plains to build tepees. Sheets of bark provided a waterproof skin over the conical framework.

© Getty Images 

Cork oak -

Cork is the outer bark of the cork oak tree, native to southwest Europe and northwest Africa. An impermeable buoyant material and 100% natural, cork is used in a variety of products, most notably wine stoppers.

© Getty Images 

Wine corks -

Wine corks are a stopper used to seal wine bottles. They've been used for this purpose for thousands of years, emerging in antiquity when cork closures were used to provide a water-tight stopper for Greek and Roman amphorae.

© Getty Images 

Cork products -

Besides wine stoppers, cork is used to manufacture items such as shoes, handbags, wallets, and even umbrellas. Cork is also an essential element in the production of badminton shuttlecocks, fishing floats, and floor and wall tiles, among many other applications.

© Shutterstock 

Mulch -

Organic mulches include formerly living material such as chopped leaves, straw, grass clippings, compost, wood chips, and shredded wood bark. Applied to the surface of soil, mulch conserves soil moisture, improves its health and fertility, and reduces weed growth.

© Shutterstock 

Kozo -

Kozo is used as a general term for Japanese paper made from the inner bark of mulberry trees. Here, kozo tree bark is washed and imperfections removed as it nears the stage of becoming paper during the washi paper-making process. Its centuries-old manufacturing technique is inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

© Getty Images 

Hanji -

Similar to the Japanese washi paper-making process is the traditional South Korean art of hanji, where paper is also made from the inner bark of the mulberry tree. Korean mulberry tree fibers are especially long, resilient, and shiny. As such, hanji lasts for more than 1,000 years, and despite its durability, its surface is still smooth. Due to its unique characteristics, the manufacturers of hanji have relied on the bark of this particular tree for more than 1,600 years.

© Getty Images 

Baobab bark -

Bark from the baobab tree is stripped and plaited to make cordage by the Dogon, an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali and Burkina Faso. Baobabs are native to Madagascar, mainland Africa, and Australia.

© Getty Images 

Bark for a better tone -

In this image from the 1930s, an Austrian Tyrol Oompah band pose with homemade wind instruments crafted from tree bark in a novel effort to improve the tone and pitch of the sounds produced.

© Getty Images 

Hemlock bark -

Hemlock bark was an important vegetable tanning material in North America for many years, producing the characteristic red leather of 19th-century America. In this 1895 photograph, huge stocks of hemlock have been gathered to form "bark barns" in Wisconsin, ready for shipment.

© Getty Images 

Mimosa bark -

Hemlock tree bark remains an important tanning material. Mimosa bark, another vegetable tannin that is extracted from the tanner acacia cultivated in Australia, Southeast Asia, and South Africa, is also sought after for its very high tannin content of up to 30%. Leather tanned with mimosa bark has a warm and appealing reddish color.

© Shutterstock 

Bark for fuel -

In post-WWII Germany, it wasn't uncommon to see people stripping away tree bark in cities to use as fuel for heating. This Berlin housewife is armed with a knife, bag, and handcart to collect bark during the energy crisis that followed the cessation of hostilities.

© Getty Images 

Bark as art -

In Australian Aboriginal society, bark paintings were traditionally produced for instructional and ceremonial purposes. The technique involves the use of natural pigments painted on the interior of a strip of flattened eucalyptus tree bark. This ancient artistic expression continues today, with some of the finest examples found in prestigious art museums and private collections around the world.

© Getty Images 

Trapajones -

A man dressed as a trapajon, an entity of nature, taking part in the Vijanera winter festival at Silio in Spain's Cantabria province. The origin of the festival is uncertain, but is believed to originate in pagan rituals of local tribes prior to the Romans. The costumes worn include those of the trapajones made of natural elements, including moss, ivy, straw, ferns, briar, corn, beans, leaves, and the bark of different trees.

© Getty Images 

Chinchona bark -

The bark of the rare chinchona tree gave the world quinine, the world's first anti-malarial drug. The tree is native to the tropical Andean forests of western South America. They've also been cultivated in India and Java. The cinchona tree, which is depicted in Peru's national emblem, has been used medically in South America for centuries and has saved millions of lives in the world fighting malaria. Today, however, the species faces its own battle against deforestation.

© Getty Images

Manchurian elm bark -

The Ainu people of northern Japan and the Russian Far East traditionally crafted clothes using cloth woven with fibers from the inner bark of Manchurian elm, Japanese linden, and other trees. Known as attus, this attire is still made today. Manchurian elm fiber is especially favored, its soft fabric comfortable against the skin.

© Getty Images 

Charter oak bark -

This is a photograph of a carved wooden bowl made from a piece of the historic Charter Oak, a white oak tree that stood on Wyllys Hyll in Hartford, Connecticut. The tree fell during a storm in 1856 to reveal Connecticut's Royal Charter of 1662, which had been hidden in a hollow to thwart its confiscation by British officials. The bowl is ringed by tree bark designed as a textured hand grip.

© Getty Images 

Bark headwear -

This example of a hat used by Eskimo boat hunters in the Bearing Sea in the 19th century is made from a single piece of birch bark that protected the eyes from the Arctic sun. The ivory wings and the visor helped make the wearer appear birdlike, while the ivory amulets pleased the spirits of prey, increasing the prospect of a successful kill.

© Getty Images 

The coracle -

Traditionally made of a framework of split and interwoven willow rods, tied with willow bark, the coracle is a small, rounded boat whose origins lie in antiquity. Its first recorded use in the British Isles dates back to 16th-century Wales, parts of England's West Country, and in Ireland. The outer layer was normally an animal skin such as horse or bullock hide, with a thin layer of tar to waterproof it. The coracle was used for fishing in fast flowing streams.

© Getty Images 

Bark as medicine -

Tree bark has been used medicinally for thousands of years. In the early 20th century, bark from numerous trees was being analyzed with varying degrees of success for its natural healing properties. Pictured in 1928 are two scientists treating bark with ultra violet rays in an attempt to to produce a skin cure. Antiquity, however, is where we need to look for the origins of medicinal trees.

© Getty Images 

Bark as a pain relief -

One of the oldest uses for tree medicine dates back to 3000 BCE, when the ancient Egyptians used the bark of the willow tree for an analgesic. Aspirin was first synthesized from willow bark by the German chemist Felix Hoffman (1868–1946) and introduced to the medical market in 1899 as a relief against pain.

© Shutterstock 

Oak bark -

In fact, medicinal tree barks offer many useful herbal healing actions, and they can be harvested in sustainable ways. Oak bark contains tannins, which might help treat diarrhea and inflammation, and can be used to make tea.

© Shutterstock 

Pine bark -

Pine bark extract is a herbal supplement with all sorts of potential health benefits. These include helping to fight off the common cold, reducing inflammation, and protecting skin from sun damage.

© Shutterstock 

Slippery elm bark -

Slippery elm is a tree native to North America. The inner bark of slippery elm can be chewed and may be effective in taming a sore throat. It's also capable of soothing the lining of the stomach and intestines and reducing irritation.

© Shutterstock 

Basswood bark -

Native American herbalists first used the roots and bark of basswood for treating minor burns. Its health benefits and therapeutic value may extend to lowering fever, diminishing nasal secretions, and reducing headaches and sore muscles that are connected to a general feeling of malaise.

© Shutterstock 

Walnut bark -

Fresh walnut bark may be applied to the temples for headache or to teeth to relieve pain. Dried and powdered bark, or pounded fresh bark, can be applied to wounds to stop swelling and to accelerate healing.

© Getty Images 

Willow bark -

Willow bark tea may help in the treatment of muscle pain and inflammation, diarrhea, fever, arthritic pain, and headache.

© Shutterstock 

Cinnamon bark -

The bark of the cinnamon tree grown in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia is one of the most widely used spices in Europe and North America. Its fragrance is powerful, warm, spicy, smooth, and lightly fruity. 

Sources: (The Canadian Encyclopedia) (Word on the Grapevine) (UNESCO) (The Museum of Natural and Cultural History) (BBC) (Connecticut History) (Science History Institute) (Healthline)

© Getty Images