Before manmade fire starters there were pone knots. Pine knots are the resin filled knots formed at the junction of a branch and trunk of a pine tree and linger long after the tree dies and rots. They can be found by pulling a protruding branch from a downed pine tree and stripping the rotted wood from the knot. What’s left is a soft, resin filled piece of tangle-grained wood.
Back when people found and cut their own wood, pine knots were gathered to both start a fire and create a wonderful fragrance indoors that mimicked the smell of the pine woods. It was said, “A man with a basket full of pine knots, was a rich man indeed.”
TD