A coniferous tree up to 40 m high, reaches an age of 550 years, and in favorable conditions – 800 years. The needles are long, soft, triangular, 5 needles in a bunch, kept on the branches from 3 to 7 years. Flowers anthered, in spikelets, fio-Summer-red. Female cones are purple, at the tops of the branches, 2-5. Seeds are nuts enclosed in a hard shell of light or dark brown color. The tree begins to bear fruit in open places from the age of 15-25, and in a dense forest – from 50-60 years.
Widely distributed in Western, Central and Eastern Siberia, both within the middle and southern taiga, and in the mountain forest belt.
Medicinal raw materials are seeds (nuts), their shells, needles, young tops and buds of branches and resin (resin) of cedar.
Nuts are edible, contain a large percentage of oil (60-70%), well absorbed by the human body and used in medicine for the preparation of medicines. In addition to fat, nut kernels contain up to 20% proteins, 12% starch, 2% pentosans, 4% fiber, 2% ash, which contains a number of trace elements, vitamins B and D. If you give children and adults a handful of nuts every day, then it is possible to significantly increase the resistance of the body against a number of diseases, increase the longevity of a person.
Even PS Pallas in 1792 noted that pine nuts restore male strength and restore youth to a person. In folk medicine, milk made from nucleoli is used against tuberculosis, kidney and bladder diseases.
Application
Nut shell infusion is used against hemorrhoids (half a glass of shell is poured with a glass of boiling water, insisted for 30-40 minutes and taken orally in 2 divided doses before meals), for deafness, kidney and liver diseases.
Young tops, buds and needles containing ascorbic acid, essential oils and trace elements have long been used against scurvy. A vitamin drink from pine needles is prepared in two ways. According to the first – the needles and branches are poured with boiling water, insisted for 2-3 hours and then the infusion is drunk. The second way, which allows you to save more vitamins, is that chopped needles are poured with an equal volume of cold water, slightly acidified with citric or diluted medical hydrochloric acid. The infusion is placed in a warm place for 2-3 days, after which it is suitable for consumption. Cedar resin and resin, flowing from cuts on the trunk, have a bactericidal property (they contain a large number of phytoncides that have a detrimental effect on many pathogenic microbes) and are successfully used to treat wounds, chronic ulcers, and boils.
Decoction of the shells wash hands and feet to remove hairiness.