On the first Sunday in December, Mary Alice and I decorated our Christmas tree. Back when our children were young, Mary Alice decorated the tree after the children went to bed on Christmas Eve, while I assembled the toys. However, not everything has changed. Mary Alice warns me each year to be sure and put on old clothes when I bring the tree in the house, so I don’t get pine pitch on my good clothes. When she says this I am always reminded of my mother giving me the same warning.

Although all conifers give off pitch when injured, pine trees are known for their resins. Through the ages, this Greek legend has been told about pine tree resin. The forests were the home of nymphs, dryads and many minor gods, including Pan.

Another god was Pitys, whose duty was to tend the pine trees in the forests. Pitys had a lover Boreas, god of the north wind, who was a big and burly fellow and quite different from the flute-playing Pan. Pitys flirted with both. One day, Boreas got into an argument with Pitys about her flirting with Pan. He was so enraged he threw her against a rocky ledge, where she instantly turned into a pine tree. The resin droplets often seen on the wounds of pine trees are supposedly the tears of Pitys as she thinks about her youth.

After being cut or injured, the trunk of a pine tree will weep glistening tears known as resin, pitch or even gum. Resin is a honey-like mixture of hard rosin and liquid turpentine. This resin is used to help heal the tree’s wounds. A pine tree has the ability to create an extra flow of resin to its wound, by creating new resin canals above and below the injury.

This ability to create an extra flow of resin has been valuable to mankind. The turpentine industry is based on this emergency response of the pines. By putting carefully planned gashes in the turpentine tree, the resin can be gathered much like sap from maple trees.

Turpentine has been used as a solvent for paints and varnishes and as a paint thinner. Turpentine also has a host of other uses, such as furniture wax when mixed with beeswax. Historically, turpentine has also been used in the medical field.

Severe and frequent wounding could kill a pine tree, however, reasonable tapping once or twice a week is harmless. Tapping can be continued for many years. The total weight of the resin collected could be more than the weight of the entire tree.

Although most conifers have resin canals, those of the pines are more efficient than other conifers. The resin is known as oleoresin, with each species of pine having its own particular oleoresin chemistry.

This chemical difference caused quite a stir during our Civil War. At the beginning of the war when the Union Forces were cut off from their normal turpentine sources of the south, the north began turpentine productions in the forests of California. All went well with the resin taken from the Ponderosa pine; however, the turpentine mistakenly taken from the Jeffery Pine, which was a very similar looking tree, caused an explosion.

The resin collected from the Ponderosa pine would be distilled into ordinary turpentine, but the resin collected from the Jeffrey pine contained heptane, which is the same highly inflammable heptane found in petroleum when pumped from oil wells. Today, there is a less complicated and cheaper method of testing motor fuels.

In 1924, when the gasoline industry was trying to take engine knock out of their gasoline, they needed a supply of heptane for research work. Once again the Jeffrey pines were tapped. The octane rating scale for measuring the knocking quality of gasoline comes from the Jeffrey pine. Today, there is a less complicated and cheaper method of testing motor fuels.

One California druggist distilled heptane in his laboratory and sold it under the name Albertine as a remedy for pulmonary ailments and a cure for tuberculosis.

Turpentine is used in foods and beverages, and distilled turpentine oil is used as a flavoring ingredient. In manufacturing, turpentine oil is used in soap, cosmetics and also as a paint solvent. It is also added to perfumes, foods and cleaning agents as a fragrance.

I wish everyone a safe, healthy and Merry Christmas!

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.