Norway Spruce

Description:

It is a large, fast-growing evergreen coniferous tree growing 35–55 m (115–180 ft) tall and with a trunk diameter of 1 to 1.5 m. It can grow fast when young, up to 1 m (3 ft) per year for the first 25 years under good conditions, but becomes slower once over 20 m (66 ft) tall.[1] The shoots are orange-brown and glabrous (hairless). The leaves are needle-like, 12–24 mm long, quadrangular in cross-section (not flattened), and dark green on all four sides with inconspicuous stomatal lines. The cones are 9–17 cm long (the longest of any spruce), and have bluntly to sharply triangular-pointed scale tips. They are green or reddish, maturing brown 5–7 months after pollination. The seeds are black, 4–5 mm long, with a pale brown 15 mm wing.[2][3][4][5][6] The tallest measured Norway spruce, 63 m (207 ft) tall, is in Perucica Virgin Forest, Sutjeska National Park, Bosnia-Herzegovina.[

Habitat:

Norway spruce grows throughout Europe from Norway in the northwest and Poland eastward, and also in the mountains of central Europe, southwest to the western end of the Alps, and southeast in the Carpathians and Balkans to the extreme north of Greece. The northern limit is in the arctic, just north of 70°N in Norway. Its eastern limit in Russia is hard to define, due to extensive hybridisation and intergradation with the Siberian spruce, but is usually given as the Ural Mountains. However, trees showing some Siberian spruce characters extend as far west as much of northern Finland, with a few records in northeast Norway. The hybrid is known as Picea × fennica (or P. abies subsp. fennica, if the two taxa are considered subspecies), and can be distinguished by a tendency towards having hairy shoots and cones with smoothly rounded scales

Notes:

Thoughts of our Old Norway Spruce Tree – As the euphoria passed of having this huge, overbearing, sun-hogging, pine-cone-dropping, sap-dripping, needle-dumping tree finally cut, and the adrenaline of seeing the monster tree drop finally level off, I stood in our back window last evening viewing the new openness of our yard-- tears filled my eyes. Yeah, cutting of this tree was long overdue; it was huge; it was literally dangerous and scary especially during a wind and thunderstorm, but it had been “with us” for over 35 years and it had to be over 80 years old itself. Still, it was a living, growing thing. I thought about all the things that tree had experiences and I imagined the weather, the storms, that this tree had to withstand just to grow it 90 foot size. It had served us well over the years and had been a part of many memories. It provided shelter and perches for countless birds and squirrels –an occasional raccoon should be seen climbing it. It provided shade; it was a natural omni-umbrella from a sudden rain; it allowed an assortment of birdhouses to adorn it, even a couple feeders. Although I am not big on It had to come down and ultimately I'm glad it did. It's still just a little sad to see something so majestic and strong that stood guard over our home for so many years lay in a crumbled heap. It was a love/hate relationship with that tree -- glad it is gone but it will be missed.