White pine
White pine needle
Scientific Name: Pinus strobus
Type of Plant: Tree
Description: The white pine is a large, straight-stemmed tree with a pyramidal crown. It grows 50 to 100 feet tall. Pine leaves are two to five inches long, needle-shaped, and held in bundles of five (sometimes less). The needles are green with a blue tinge, flexible, and finely serrated. The leaf bundles live for eighteen months before they are shed and replaced by a new needle bundle. The seeds are less than one-fifth of an inch long and have a small wing that allows the seed to be wing dispersed. These seeds are held together in pinecones that are slender and three to six inches long and one and a half to two inches wide.
Natural Range: White pine naturally grows south from Canada to northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama and west to Minnesota. It prefers limestone soil with good drainage and mild summers. It has commercial use as lumber, so it may be planted outside its normal habitat.
Food Usage: Pine trees have many edible parts. The young needle shoots can be eaten, and the bark can be boiled and ground to use as a famine-food replacement for flour; but the most useful edible use of pine is to boil the needles for a tea that is high in vitamin A and C. Pine needle tea contains four to five times the vitamin C of fresh-squeezed orange juice and is high in vitamin A. It is also an expectorant and decongestant and can be used as an antiseptic wash.
Pine Needle Tea
Ingredients:
• Small handful of young needles
• Water
Procedure:
• Remove any of the brown, papery sheaths that may remain at the base of the needles.
• Chop the needles into small ¼ to ½ inch long pieces.
• Heat about a cup of water to just before boiling.
• Bring water almost to a boil.
• Pour the hot water over about a tablespoon of the chopped needles.
• Cover and allow to steep for 5–10 minutes.
Alternative Usage: Pine secretes a resin that closes cuts or broken limbs. This sticky sap has several uses for preppers or others during survival situations. As pine sap is exposed to air it will harden, but heating can soften it. The pine resin is waterproof, so it can be heated and applied to materials to seal seams. It is flammable and can be used to help start fires. Fatwood, which survivalists prize as a fire starter, is simply aged pine stumps that have the resin concentrated in the wood. The resin is sticky and can be used as glue.
Pine Pitch Glue
Materials:
• Pine pitch
• Charcoal
• Stick with a blunt end
Procedure:
• Warm the resin to liquid form (a double boiler is best used as pine pitch is very flammable).
• Crumble charcoal as fine as possible.
• Once the resin is liquid, remove it from the heat.
• Stir in powdered charcoal. Use one-third the amount of the charcoal as compared to the amount of liquid pine sap.
• Dip the stick in the liquid pine/charcoal mix. Do this repeatedly to form a large clump of pitch on the end of the stick. Once the glue hardens, the stick is easily stored for use.
To Use: Heat until pliable and rub over material to be joined.
Additionally, the pitch on the end of the stick may be lighted and used as a torch.
Note: Pine tar mixed with sulfur is useful to treat dandruff. Pine sap can be chewed like gum to clean your teeth. Pine tar can also be processed to make turpentine.