 Phloem of pine trees has been used in Finland and Scandinavia as a substitute food in times of famine and even in good years in the northeast.Supplies of phloem from previous years helped stave off starvation in the great famine of the 1860s which hit both Finland and Sweden (Finnish famine of 1866-1868 and Swedish famine of 1867–1869).Phloem is dried and milled to flour ("pettu" in Finnish) and mixed with rye to form a hard dark bread, bark bread.