Conifer pitch is truly amazing stuff. If you're lucky enough to find yourself in an area that has lots of balsam fir trees, not only will you have an excellent substitute for neosporin anti-biotic creme: you will also have an excellent way of lighting emergency fires ... a method which is going to create life saving fires even during the course of a raging downpour ! The main problem is that you aren't a botanist and neither am I. If you happen to be a "generalist" (like I am) and you gather information about a wide variety of different subjects, you can easily lose sight of fine distinctions that only a "specialist" would be cognizant of. The end result is that you have a serious gap in your knowledge, and this can easily spell disaster for you when the chips are down. OK, so you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere and you see lots of trees all over the place. They appear to be conifers of some kind, but exactly what kind of conifers are they ? Are they pines or spruce or what ? The balsam fir is almost identical to the spruce or the pine, so how are you going to know which tree is a balsam fir and which tree is something else ? How are you going to gather the all-important pitch, and once you harvest the pitch, what are you going to do with it ? If you know that it's a pine tree that you're looking at, you know that you can make a life-saving tea out of the needles. But let's assume for a moment that you're stuck in a place that has tons of douglas fir trees. Then what ? Can you obtain sustenance from them ? Can you eat the inner bark ? Is the wood going to make a good campfire ? etc. etc. LW.

Identifying Conifers: http://uptreeid.com/Key1.htm

The inner bark of the Douglas Fir is edible, as are the seeds. Take a good seasoning with you.

Sue

I wrote an article here on Balsam Fir Pitch

The bark of balsam firs usually have "blisters" full of pitch that you can pop.

I also wrote an article about eating pine bark . The inner bark of the white pine is especially delicious if prepared correctly.

Wow ! that's an excellent web-site you have... it's one of the best I've ever seen. I appreciate you sharing it with us.

One of the respondents to your article points out that balsam fir has a close cousin with similar characteristics, he even names the species, but he doesn't say anything regarding the utility of various other species of conifer, such as spruce and douglas fir. If you made a survival tea out of spruce or douglas fir needles, I wonder if the tea would have the same nutritional value as pine needles, and would it delay the onset of scurvy ? The wood of conifers is said to be soft and "pitchy" so it probably isn't the best choice for making a fire. I don't live in balsam fir country, but I have seen lots of pine trees. If I knew how to harvest pine or douglas fir pitch, I would try it out the next time I get a paper cut just to see if it would help to alleviate the onset of infection. Balsam fir pitch seems to be something that's akin to manna from heaven, so maybe I should move out to balsam fir country. It's gotta be bone-chilling cold out there. LW.