Cascara Tincture & Alcohol-Free Extract

Cascara (Rhamnus purshiana, now classified by Kew as Frangula purshiana), the cascara buckthorn or chittam, is a deciduous shrub or small tree of the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae, native to the moist forests of the Pacific Northwest, from British Columbia through Washington, Oregon, and Idaho into northern California. It grows 5 to 15 meters with smooth, thin, grey-brown bark that is bitter to the taste, large oval leaves with 10 to 15 pairs of straight, prominent, parallel veins, and inconspicuous greenish flowers followed by pea-sized berries that ripen from red to purple-black. The bark is stripped in spring and stored for a year before sale. We extract the dried bark.