Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Pistacia lentiscus L.
Pronounced Mastic: MAS-tik. Pistacia lentiscus: pis-TAY-shee-uh len-TIS-kus.
A warm, drying, aromatic astringent resin: it tightens and disinfects boggy, damp, ulcerated mucosa and knits wounded tissue.
Not recommended. Safety in pregnancy has not been established and reproductive/developmental data are absent; avoid medicinal doses, especially internal high-dose use. Culinary and food-level amounts are unlikely to pose concern. Source: EMA/HMPC Assessment report on Pistacia lentiscus L., resina (mastic), 2015.
Not recommended. Safety during lactation has not been established and excretion into breast milk is unstudied; avoid medicinal use while breastfeeding. Source: EMA/HMPC 2015.
Medicinal internal use in children and adolescents under 18 years, and topical use under 12 years, has not been established due to lack of adequate data (EMA/HMPC 2015). Food-level amounts (culinary use, chewing gum) have a long history of use, including traditionally for children's diarrhoea in the Eastern Mediterranean (Grieve 1931), but medicinal dosing should be avoided in minors without professional guidance.
Member of the Anacardiaceae (cashew/sumac) family: possible cross-reactivity in people allergic to pistachio, cashew, mango, or poison ivy/oak, and allergic contact dermatitis has been reported. Otherwise well tolerated at traditional doses. Doses above the traditional range are not studied.
Known hypersensitivity to mastic or to other Pistacia, Schinus, or Anacardiaceae species.
Pistacia lentiscus is widespread across the Mediterranean and assessed as Least Concern; it is not on the United Plant Savers at-risk list (a Mediterranean, not North American, species). Chios mastic (var. Chia) is a PDO product, hand-harvested by traditional 'tears' tapping that scores the bark without killing the tree. Choose PDO Chios mastiha to support sustainable island growers and guarantee authentic material.
The mastic tree (Greek schinos) appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Susanna (Daniel 13:54-55, Septuagint): questioned separately, the second false elder says the tryst occurred 'under a mastic tree' (hypo schinon), and Daniel answers that the angel of God waits 'to cut you in two' (schisei), a Greek pun on schinos and schizo. Deuterocanonical (received in the Catholic and Orthodox canon; not in the Hebrew or Protestant canon). Documented earlier still by Dioscorides (De Materia Medica, c. 65 CE) as schinos, and cultivated for its resin ('mastiha') on the island of Chios for more than 2,500 years.
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