Sweet pine
Abies lasiocarpa
Also called Subalpine fir, Balsam fir
- Blackfoot
- kutoyiss
- Cree
- sitapikwan
Know another name for this plant, or a different spelling? Tell us.
A mountain fir whose needles carry a sweet citrus smell. Traded down out of the mountains into Blackfoot country for a very long time, and used as a smudge and a scent.
Speak with someone who knows this plant before you harvest it.
Take care
- Yew grows in some mountain forests and is seriously poisonous. Yew needles are flat like fir but dark green above and pale beneath, with a red berry-like fruit instead of a cone. If you see red fruit, walk away.
What it is confused with
Easily confusedWhite and Engelmann spruce Picea species
Spruce needles are sharp and four-sided, and will roll easily between finger and thumb. Fir needles are flat and blunt and will not roll. Spruce cones hang down; fir cones stand up.
Easily confusedDouglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii
Douglas-fir cones hang down and have a three-pointed bract sticking out between every scale, which nothing else here has. Its buds are sharply pointed and papery brown.
How to know it
- Needles
- Flat and blunt, soft to the hand, arranged in two rough rows or brushed upward along the twig. They will not roll between your fingers.
- Smell
- Sweet, resinous and citrus-like when crushed. Quite unlike spruce.
- Bark
- Smooth and grey on young trees, with raised resin blisters you can press.
- Cones
- Sit upright on the upper branches like candles, and fall apart on the tree rather than dropping whole.
- Shape
- Narrow and spire-like, holding branches nearly to the ground in the open.
The country it grows in
- Mountain forest
- Foothills and shrubland
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Needles and cones January to DecemberAvailable year round, though the smell is strongest in the growing season.
- Bark May to August
Right now it is July. Something on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Smudge and ceremony
- Breathing and colds
Dried needles are burned as an incense and used to scent belongings and bundles.
Documented in Blackfoot practice both as a smudge and as a trade good coming from the mountains.
How it is prepared
- Dried and stored
Strip needles from small twigs and dry them loose in a paper bag. They hold their scent well.
- Smudge
A pinch of dried needles on a coal or in a shell gives a sweet resinous smoke.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.
Take a few small branch tips from several trees rather than stripping one. Never ring a tree by taking bark all the way around it; that kills it.