TIL

Myanmar Medicinal Plant Database

Family: Pinaceae

compiled by U Kyaw Tun, U Pe Than, and staff of TIL. Not for sale.

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Family: Pinaceae 0 entry
• Pinaceae family - general characters

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Pinaceae family - general characters

From: Families yielding important phytopharmaceuticals in Fundamentals of Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, by Michael Heinrich, J. Barnes, S. Gibbons, and E. Williamson, October 2003, ISBN:0443071322, pp.320 -- www.fleshandbones.com/readingroom/pdf/747.pdf

Important medicinal plants from the family
• Abies spp. (fir).
• Picea spp. (spruce).

Morphological characteristics of the family
(Fig. 4.20)
The trees of this family (conifers) are evergreen and usually have opposed or whorled branches. Typically, the leaves of this family are needle-shaped and linear (‘pine needles’). The pollen- and gynoecium-producing flowers are separate, but on one plant (monoecious). The pollen producing cones are small and herbaceous. They produce large amounts of pollen, which is transported by the wind. The female cones are usually woody with spirally arranged scales, each usually with two ovules on the upper surface, and subtended by a more or less united bract. There are usually two winged, wind-distributed seeds per scale.

Distribution
This small family (about 200 species) is widely distributed in the north temperate regions of the world [including regions with long annual periods of extreme frost such as high mountains (Alps), the northernmost parts of Western Europe and the Asian tundra] and extends into the warmer regions of the northern hemisphere. Many members of this family are accordingly very frost- and drought-resistant and form large tree or shrub dominated zones of vegetation.

Chemical characteristics of the family
The best known pharmaceutical products from this family are essential oils and balsams, which are typically found in schizogenic excretion ducts of the leaves as well as in excretion pores of wood and bark. Both are rich in monoterpenoids such as α-pinene and borneol). Mixtures of oil and resin from these species are called turpentine, while the resinous part is called colophony and is particularly rich in terpenoids (including diterpenoids such as abietic acid). Other widely reported groups of compounds from members of this family are flavonoids, condensed tannins, and lignans (e.g. pinoresinol) (Fig. 4.21).

Contents of this page

Entry format: Botanical name / Family / Ref. Burmese-Myanmar transcripts • Agri.Dept.2000 : • Chklist: • LSR : • FAO : • KS-TMN: • Nagathein : • UHM :/ Myanmar-Script Spelling ( • Official Myanmar Dictionaries : - TravPo-M-Dict - Myan-Engl-Dict - Myan-Ortho / Chklist data / Hindi / Sanskrit / English common name used in Myanmar / Picture / Plant identification characters / Distribution in Myanmar / Part used and uses / Constituents /
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