Medicinal Monday...Yellow Pine

The yellow pine tree is not only an important tree for timber in the deep South, but many Native American tribes found medicinal uses for this evergreen tree that can grow up to 100 feet tall. The wood of this tree is pale yellow, finely grained, and contains less resin than other pine trees. The wood is used for a variety of purposes today including lumber, plywood, and wood pulp used in making paper.

About Yellow Pine

The Yellow Pine is found in the Southeastern United States. This evergreen tree has scaly dark bark when it is young and as it matures the bark develops flat scales that have a yellow tinge to them, which is how it got one of its most common names. The blue-green needles of this tree are slender and flexible, grow in clusters of two or three, and are up to five inches in length. The tree produces a male pale purple cone and a pale pink female cone.

Medicinal and Practical Uses

Many Native American communities used the wood of this tree for lumber. They also used the wood for carving and to make long canoes of up to forty feet. 

Medicinally the most common traditional use was to use the resin as a rub and steam bath in the treatment of sore muscles and swellings. A tea was made from the buds to induce vomiting and the pitch from the trunk was used as a laxative. The Choctaw made a cold infusion of the buds and drank the mixture to treat worms. The Nanticoke used the resin pellets as a poultice to treat sore muscles. The Rappahannock made a decoction from the upper branches of the tree and used it as a wash to treat sore muscles and swellings, they also grated the bark and made tea from it to induce vomiting. One of the more unusual uses of this tree was to feed a compound of dried bark to make dogs with distemper vomit.

photo credit  David J. Stang

Did You Know...

Other common names for this tree are old field pine, rosemary pine, and short-leaf pine,

Oleoresins are extracted to make turpentine.

This species of pine tree supports Imperial Moths.

Squirrels and other small mammals eat the seeds.

The genus name Pinus comes from Latin and is the name for pines. Echinata means spiny and refers to the prickle-tipped scales on the outsides of the cones that it produces.

If the top of the tree catches on fire, the lower trunk sends up new shoots, making it somewhat fire-resistant.