Norway Spruce - Picea excelsa Link

Norway Spruce - Picea excelsa Link

Norway Spruce (white spruce, Norway Spruce) - Picea excelsa Link .

Pinaceae.
Evergreen tree 20-50 m tall, with a conical crown and peeling reddish-gray bark. The needles are flattened-quadrangular, pointed, dark green. Men staminate cones oblong-cylindrical, greenish-yellow. Female seed cones hanging, oblong-cylindrical, up to ripening purple, then green, mature - brown. Seed scales convex, sinuate-toothed, woody. Seeds are dark brown, with long wings.
Blossoms in May - June.
It grows in wet places on the rich loamy soils, rising to the mountains to an altitude of 1800 meters above sea level (forms pure spruce). Occurs in a mixture with other tree species in northern and central European part of Russia. Is used for landscaping parks and human settlements.
Harvest the tops of young branches with buds during flowering, unripe cones and resin - from June to September.
Contains essential oil , tannin , resin , vitamin C (in the needles of up to 40 mg%), carotene , iron salts, chromium , manganese , Aluminum , phytoncides . In pollen are flavonoids , resinous substances, essential oils, phytoncides ; cones found in the seeds and fatty oil.
Has antiscorbutic, diuretic , sudorific , choleretic , pain and wound healing action.
Broth: 40 g of crushed cones eaten per 200 ml of water boiled for 30 minutes, filter. Apply to gargle 5-6 times a day, or bury, 4-5 drops in both nostrils with angina , tonsillitis , laryngitis , tracheitis , sinusitus , rhinitis , for the prevention of childhood infectious diseases, 2) 100 g of the tops of young spruce branches with buds on 500 ml of water, boil 30-40 minutes , filter. Apply in a bath at gout , rheumatic lesions of the joints.
Infusion: 40 g coarse needles of spruce to 250 ml boiling water for 20 minutes, filter. Accepted 50 ml of 5 times a day with a deficiency of vitamin C , as expectorant tool, as well as in diseases of the kidneys and urinary ways.
Ointment: Mix equal amounts of rubbing and pine-resin , beeswax and butter . Apply in furunculosis , wounds and abrasions, ulcers , ulcer.
From the fir wood are activated charcoal.
In food uses fresh spruce needles, buds and inflorescences (instead of tea).
Preparations spruce contraindicated at giperatsidnom gastritis , ulcer stomach.