Salix nigra bark of the tree contains salicylic acid, a chemical compound similar to aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid). It may also be used as an environmental restorative. Swamp trees in general are, by necessity, good at surviving and thriving in areas where highly mobile environmental toxins are present. Black Willow is very resistant to herbivory and flooding and is also a fantastic erosion control tool. Thus, it is useful for any sort of marshland stabilization or restorative as long as the roots don’t penetrate any clay liner that may be in place. In a relatively extensive phytoremediation study, "Salix nigra" demonstrated some success
History of aspirin preparations became a standard part of the "materia medica" of Western medicine beginning at least with the Greek physician Hippocrates in the fifth century BCE; he recommended chewing on willow bark to relieve pain or fever, and drinking tea made from it to relieve pain during childbirth. The Roman encyclopedist Celsus, in his "De Medicina" of ca. 30 AD, suggested willow leaf extract to treat the four signs of inflammation: redness, heat, swelling and pain. Willow treatments also appeared in Dioscorides's "De Materia Medica", and Pliny the Elder's "Natural History". By the time of Galen, willow bark was commonly used