White Pine Medicine

It’s been a white pine heavy winter and early spring for me here in upstate new york. We have a few white pines on the land where I live, two specifically that I think of on our back hillside that I visit often—one enormous and old, over 100 feet tall with a broad trunk it would take two of me, arms fully extended to wrap all the way around and branches high and unreachable. The other one is younger, with a few low branches I can get to on my tiptoes—this is the one I gather from. 

Ecologically white pine—Pinus strobus Pinaceae—is pretty fascinating to me. Not really discussed as a tree under threat, white pine has actually faced centuries of population demise, a fact that is almost completely forgotten by most! A once hugely prolific tree, with amazing large tracts of white pine-dominated woodlands that spanned the east—enormous 200-500 year old trees, reaching up to 250 feet tall—white pines have been over-harvested for so long we often overlook how they originally lived. No one around today would have witnessed such a forest—ground lined with rusted needles, trunks so broad it would take 5 of us then or maybe more to encircle them, so dark and quiet and majestic. Now, white pines grow singularly, often found in the woods where an old pasture once was and the pine was left to be grazed or mowed around and thus allowed to grow to the enormous size it is able to reach, completely solitary in the woods. Or we see them come up in disturbed zones, a tree to quickly colonize openings. The small young saplings popping up reveal its’ old communal growth pattern. Nonetheless, I think it’s important to think about this tree’s history of degradation and use, with one of the broadest range of uses as lumber, how it used to grow, how it grows now in comparison, when considering it as medicine. 

That all being said, white pine is actually our most common pine in the east! And our most common evergreen at that. Easily identified amongst other pines by their 5-needle bundles and their dark thick, fire-proof bark, white pines grow everywhere. And they grow to such a large size that I feel very comfortable harvesting minimally from them and telling others to do so as well. So this is a brief monograph on how to use and prepare white pine for its healing virtues.

White pine medicine is plentiful and just as wide-ranging as its functional role as lumber. The needles and inner bark—I like to use the small twigs too—have resin-rich, antimicrobial, astringent, drawing, and expectorant qualities, used for colds and flus to break up congestion and as a wash or poultice to heal and prevent infected wounds. Chopped up and simmered in water or “decocted,” the needles—vibrant green throughout the year, which draws me to its company in the cold months—make a great wintertime tea. It has an incredible flavour, bright and almost citrusy, but with also a rich and heavy quality from the resinous nature of its various components. The needles are high in Vitamin C and warming in this deep way, stimulating circulation of both the blood and the spirit, and also a lovely immune and nutritive tonic.

I think it’s important to add here, amidst the list of all the ways pine can be used medicinally, that white pine is native to North America and a medicine of the indigenous people that was then shared with white settlers. For the most part, colonists from Europe, having decimated their own woods, only saw value in a lot of the trees of North America as lumber for building and firewood, eradicating huge populations of some of these trees to send back to Europe to fill the niche of their extinct trees. Pine was no different. And yet it did also make its way into European materia medica and herbal traditions, so it’s always important to acknowledge and remember from whom the knowledge and study of this medicine came.

White pine is also a great acute remedy for when you do get sick—it’s a plant I’ve been advocating for as a good medicine to have during these pandemic times as well—a great respiratory herb, helping break up and dry stuck mucous and phlegm, opening the lungs and sinuses, getting things moving and helping make a cough more productive, while also being a mild antiviral. The resin that coats the needles and inner bark is also very antimicrobial, fighting infection, and astringent, thus helping to heal the tissue after so much inflammation and disturbance. 

In this way it also makes a great remedy for wound treatment, helping prevent infection and then making way for skin regrowth and healing. For this I recommend irrigating cuts or soaking them with a strong tea before bandaging them up, or, if infection is happening, soaking in a pine-heavy tea daily until the infection has gone. I like it in the bath or as a steam—helping to warm the body and get those piney volatile oils into the sinuses to start doing their healing work. I personally love to extract pine in oil and use the oil to moisten and massage the skin throughout the winter months to keep circulation normal and help fight stagnation.

One of the first herbal first aid remedies I learned was to use the pine pitch (the pure sap or resin) as a wilderness bandaid. You do this by gathering a little of the pitch, which is sticky and thick and oozes out of wounds on the trunk or places where branches have been cut—essentially serving as the tree’s own bandaid! Then you heat it up over a fire on a spoon until it liquefies, let it cool, and then pour it onto the cut. This helps fight infection, but mostly creates a little seal as it dries, like a liquid bandaid, so that you can hike out without getting it any dirtier and get the care you need. In a pinch, you can eat white pine bark too, not my favorite wild food, but nutritious and edible if you’re lost in the wilderness and need a snack. I prefer to eat the needles actually, chopping them fine and adding them to cookies or as a spice to soup or on a chicken as a rub. It’s citrusy and flavourful and a fun way to broaden the palate.

Below is a recipe for my white pine-cherry bark cough syrup (plus a few other cough remedy herbs). Both of these plants can be a little drying, so the marshmallow root (or any other demulcent) is recommended to help add a little moisture and keep those mucous membranes lining the lungs, sinuses, and digestive tract moist and strong!

WHITE PINE COUGH SYRUP
2 cups of White pine needles and young twigs, cut up
1 cup Wild Cherry bark (Prunus serotina)
1/2 cup of Elecampane root (Inula helenium)
1/4 cup of Mullein leaves (Verbascum thapsus)
1/4 cup of Marshmallow root (Althaea officinalis)
1/4 cup of Rose hips (Rosa spp.) (any rose species will work but I like to use the invasive multiflora rose because they are so abundant)
Some other herbs to possibly use—Thyme, sage, cinnamon, ginger, spruce needles or hemlock boughs, Anise hyssop, etc. Experiment away! 

Put it all in a pot and cover with water. Simmer on low with the top off until liquid reduces down by about half. Strain off the spent herbs & compost, measure liquid, and add the same amount of honey. Mix while still warm. Store in the refrigerator or add brandy to preserve it.