#67 NORWAY SPRUCE
Picea abies
Planted: 1913
In the south west corner, behind the yew circle.
| Distribution: | Native to Northern, Central and Eastern Europe but not the UK. Closely related to the Picea obovata (Siberian Spruce), which replaces it east of the Ural Mountains, and with which it hybridizes freely. Naturalised in the northern U.S. and Canada – invasive in some locations. |
| Planting Date: | 1913, planted by Captain Chaplin as part of his Pinetum. |
| Growth Habit: | It has branchlets that hang downwards, and the largest cones of any spruce. |
| Bark: | Young bark is a coppery grey-brown and appears smooth, but is rough with papery scales. Mature trees (over 80 years old) have dark purple-brown bark, with cracks and small plates. |
| Leaf: | Needle-like with blunt tips, 12 to 14 mm long, quadrangular in cross-section. Dark green on all four sides with inconspicuous stomatal lines. |
| Flowers: | The male flowers are a cluster of stamens, which turn from red to yellow in the spring and are laden with pollen. The female flowers are red and upright, typically found at the top of the tree; wind-pollinated. |
| Fruit: | Seed cones are 9 to 17 cm long, and a blunt to sharply triangular-pointed scale tip. Green or reddish, maturing brown, 5 to 7 months after pollination. The seeds are black, 4 to 5 mm long, with pale brown 15 mm wing- cones. |
| Toxicity: | The high vitamin C content can be consumed as a tea from the shoot tips or even eaten straight from the tree when light green and new in spring. |
| Potential tree size | 35 to 55 m tall and with a trunk diameter of 3 to 4.5 m girth. |
| Uses: | Planted for its soft wood and paper production. |
| Plant Hunter: | Not known. |
| Introduction Date: | In cultivation by the 17th century. |
| Anecdotes and Comments: | Provided every year, by the Norwegian capital city Oslo, as the Christmas tree for Trafalgar Square, London. The first gymnosperm genome to be completely sequenced in 2013. A source of spruce beer; once used to prevent scurvy. Mont d’Or cheese is wrapped in a “sangle” made from the cambium, which gives the cheese a unique flavour. |