Fir Balsam Organic Essential Oil

About the Plant:

Balsam fir is a small to medium-sized, conic evergreen tree with silver-white bark that begins smooth and grey, and over time bursts with resin blisters, leading to a scaly effect on older trees. The leaves are one inch dark green, flat needle-like spikes arranged spirally on the shoot and the cones are 1.5–3 inches long, that transform from dark purple to brown, before they break apart and release seeds in September. On mountaintops, stands of Balsam fir occasionally develop in fir “waves” and frequently grow in mixed company with Black Spruce, White Spruce and Trembling Aspen. Balsam Fir provides food for moose, American red squirrels, crossbills and chickadees, as well as shelter for moose, snowshoe hares, white-tailed deer, ruffed grouse and other small mammals and songbirds. The needles are also food for certain types of moths while in caterpillar-stage.

Where it Grows:

Balsam Fir is native to north European mountainous regions and is mainly cultivated in Switzerland, Poland, Germany, France, Austria and Yugoslavia. Balsam Fir also grows in most of eastern and central Canada, the northeastern United States and south into the Appalachian Mountains as far as West Virginia. Balsam Fir is even found in mountainous regions of Asia and the Himalayas. Amrita^® Aromatherapy is proud to receive Balsam Fir from Canada.

Traditional Uses and Lore:

Native Americans and early American settlers used Balsam Fir and it’s pure oil to heal coughs and respiratory ailments, muscular and rheumatic aches and pains, and for the treatment of sores, cuts and burns. Fir Balsam was also applied to wounds during the American Civil war, and before the advent of chewing gum, was sold as a confection. Additionally, Balsam Fir oleoresin has been, and is still, used as an adhesive in the preparation of permanent mounting of microscope slides and optical lenses.

Balsam fir boughs were also historically used as travelers’ camping mattresses, using the springy, freshly cut limbs and soft needles to lift bedding off the wet ground and create a pleasantly fragrant mattress or scattered over the floors of houses and churches as a clean scented covering during winter months.

To the Irish Celts, the Balsam Fir was a tree of birth and thus it signified the birth of the new year. Because of this, Balsam was probably the original yule log and the uplifting fragrance was likely intuitively chosen to help overcome winter blues and encourage feelings of contentment and joy. In Greek mythology, the god Attis was dying from a wound, so Cybele turned him into a fir so that he would remain evergreen.