Scotch pine is a coniferous tall tree representing the Pine family (Pinaceae).
Description:
A coniferous tree up to 35 m in height with a rounded crown and a straight trunk covered with red-brown cracking bark. In the upper part of the trunk and on the branches, the bark is yellowish and flaky. The needles are located on shortened shoots, 2 in a bundle, at the base of which there is a non-falling sheath of transversely wrinkled scales. The needles are needle-shaped, bluish-green, dense, smooth, sharp, convex on one side, and flat on the other, not falling for the winter. Pine “blooms” in late May-early June, forming staminate spikelets and pistillate cones on the same tree. Staminate spikelets are ovoid, sulfur-yellow, sitting on short legs, consist of a large number of stamens filled with yellow pollen. At the ends of young shoots of the same trees, reddish pistillate cones are found, consisting of covering scales, in the axils of which sit the seed scales with ovules. Female cones after fertilization grow, in the first year they are green, in the second they become woody and black. Seeds ripen in the second or third year after flowering. Pine is one of the main forest-forming species in forests and is widely distributed throughout the territory of the former USSR. It forms various types of pine forests, occurs in mixtures with other trees (spruce), forming mixed forests – subori. It grows in a wide variety of environmental conditions – on the tops of dry sandy hills, in low habitats with marshy peat soil, in raised bogs. Seeds ripen in the second or third year after flowering. Pine is one of the main forest-forming species in forests and is widely distributed throughout the territory of the former USSR. It forms various types of pine forests, occurs in mixtures with other trees (spruce), forming mixed forests – subori. It grows in a wide variety of environmental conditions – on the tops of dry sandy hills, in low habitats with marshy peat soil, in raised bogs. Seeds ripen in the second or third year after flowering. Pine is one of the main forest-forming species in forests and is widely distributed throughout the territory of the former USSR. It forms various types of pine forests, occurs in mixtures with other trees (spruce), forming mixed forests – subori. It grows in a wide variety of environmental conditions – on the tops of dry sandy hills, in low habitats with marshy peat soil, in raised bogs.
Harvesting, description of raw materials:
Pine is a source of a number of products, many of which are used in medicine. Terpenin, rosin, turpentine, charcoal, essential oil, tar, chlorophyll paste, coniferous extract, products with vitamin C are obtained from it. Pine buds – Gemmae Pini are used as medicinal raw materials in medicine. They are collected in early spring during the swelling period, cut with a knife from the side branches of trees in the form of crowns. Dry in the shade, in well-ventilated rooms, spreading out in a thin layer. The raw material consists of buds arranged in the form of crowns in several pieces, of which the central one is larger, rarely single buds. Their surface is covered with dry, spirally arranged, tightly pressed to each other lanceolate, pointed fringed scales, glued together by protruding resin. Outside color is pinkish brown, in a break green or greenish-brown. Length from 1 to 4 cm. The taste is bitter, the smell is fragrant, resinous.
Contains active substances:
The kidneys contain essential oil, resin, vitamins C and K, carotene, tannins and the bitter substance pinipicrin.
Medicinal use:
They are used in the form of a decoction, infusion and tincture as an expectorant, disinfectant and diuretic. The essential oil obtained by steam distillation of coniferous pine branches contains pinene, limonene, borneol, bornyl acetate, cadinene and other terpenes and is used for inhalation in diseases of the respiratory tract and for ozonation of premises. Oxidized by air oxygen, pinene and other terpenes form unstable peroxides, which later decompose, releasing ozone. Pine branches (paws) and other coniferous trees contain a significant amount of vitamin C in winter and are used to prepare C-vitamin infusions. The bitter taste of infusions due to the presence of resinous substances can be adjusted by dialysis of aqueous extracts. In folk medicine, young shoots or male inflorescences with pollen that have not spilled out are used, or pollen is insisted on alcohol, brewed in boiling water or infused with boiling milk, adding honey, butter, ingda eggs, and drunk with pulmonary tuberculosis, freshly squeezed resin (resin) is poured with water and put in the sun, after 9 days they drink with pulmonary tuberculosis; young female (red) cones insist on vodka and drink for pain in the heart, green cones of the first year, infused with vodka, are used for high blood pressure, as a hemostatic; kidneys infused with vodka are used for gastritis, liver diseases, baths are made from pine needles, pollen is brewed as tea and drunk for rheumatism; gum, pork fat, sugar are boiled together and the wounds are lubricated with this ointment, wounds are poured with gum, the upper yellow film from the bark of the branches is applied to wounds, boils.