The Norway Spruce tree (Picea abies)

The Norway spruce is also known as the European spruce.  The Latin name for this tree is Picea abies.  You may wonder why I'm talking about this species despite the fact that it is not originally native to North America.  I'll explain that shortly.

First, let's cover a few basics.  Norway spruce is typically native to northern, central, and eastern Europe.  It doesn't like warm temperatures, so it's not common in southern Europe (although pockets do exist).  It is very closely related to the Siberian spruce, which is found commonly east of the Urals.

Norway spruce has become a relatively common tree in North America, despite not being a native species.  Globally, this species is one of the most widely planted of all trees, both inside and outside its native range.  Norway spruce is planted frequently within the cooler northern parts of the United States, and through eastern Canada.  It is so prevalent that there are now naturalized populations from the Great Lakes to parts of the northeastern seaboard.  It fits quite well into parts of Canada's temperate forest, and even grows well in parts of the southeastern boreal forest (at least where the climate is suitable).

Norway spruce is a very large conifer, often growing to heights of more than 40 meters, and diameters of more than a meter.  More importantly, it is very fast-growing compared to most other spruce species, especially for the first twenty-five years.  Typically, when you see mixed species plantations, you'll notice that pine trees grow very quickly (because they love sunlight) and spruce trees lag behind quite significantly, but the spruce trees slowly start to catch up after a few decades.  Norway spruce narrows that gap significantly.  Here's a photo of a semi-mature tree:

You'll notice that this particular urban tree looks quite symmetrical and full.  It has a nice shape to it.  Norway spruce has high commercial value, and not just for pulp and lumber.  It's also a very popular tree for the cultivation of Christmas trees, and used for this purpose all over the world.  Oslo (the capital of Norway) donates a large Norway spruce Christmas tree to the cities of London, Edinborough, and Washington DC each year, as thanks for the aid that the US and UK gave to Norway during World War II.  Norway spruce are also commonly used as ornamental trees in parks and gardens in many parts of the world (as long as the climate is suitable).

The needles of the Norway spruce are four-sided (quadrangular).  This means that if you take a needle and try to "roll" it between your thumb and finger, it rolls quite easily.  In contract, the needles for some species don't do this.  Balsam fir, as an example, is a three-sided needle but it's a very shallow profile (almost two-sided), so balsam fir needles won't roll easily between your fingers.  The needles of the Norway spruce have quite blunt tips.  Here's a photo of some lush foilage.

The seed cones of the Norway spruce are record-setting among the various spruce species for having the longest length.  Some full-sized cones can be almost twenty centimeters (eight inches) long.  These cones start out being either reddish or greenish in colour, but about half a year after they are pollinated, they mature to a rich brown colour.

Here are a few fun facts about the Norway spruce:

1.  This species is so fast-growing that in some areas, it grows to reach the appropriate size for Christmas trees in as little as four years.

2.  This is another species which is especially suitable for making beer (the brew is made from young branches with the richest needles).

3.  There is a Norway spruce tree in Sweden which has been nicknamed Old Tjikko.  This tree, which grew as a clone from a root system, has been dated as being 9,550 years old.  It is the oldest known individual living tree of any species (some trembling aspen clusters are much older).


Thanks for reading ...

- Jonathan Clark
www.replant-environmental.ca



Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests.  We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases.  We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world.  If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page.  Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!

Teachers are welcome to use content from this post for their classes.  If you know a teacher who might like to use this information, please share it with them!  The more that people learn about trees, the better our world will be.

To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website.  Thanks so much for your interest!



Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects.  Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.

The Norway Pine tree (Pinus resinosa)

I'd like to share some information about the Norway Pine tree.  The Latin name for this tree is Pinus resinosa, and it is also very commonly known throughout northeastern North America as the Red pine.  Red pine is probably a better name for common use.  The inner bark of the red pine is very reddish in colour, so it's an appropriate name.  In the field, I usually refer to this tree as the red pine rather than Norway pine.  Most people do.

Speaking of the bark of the tree, here's a photo.  It's quite scaly.  The bark often has more of a grey appearance in weathered trees, but if you peel away the surface bark you'll quickly see the reddish tint underneath.  The reddish bark is also easier to discern in juvenile trees.  Here's a photo showing the bark and trunk of a red pine up close:

The Norway pine is a very majestic tree at maturity.  It can often grow to be more than 30 meters (100 feet) in height and more than a meter in diameter.  Even more impressive, this is a fairly long-lived species, sometimes living for up to five hundred years.

Norway pine has a range which is limited to northeastern North America.  It is commonly found in southern Ontario, Quebec, and through the Maritime provinces.  It is also found in pockets in Newfoundland, and as far west within Canada as southern Manitoba.  It is also common around the Great Lakes and in northeastern parts of the US.  Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Let's go back to the proper name of this tree.  Nobody really seems to be sure why the pine was named after Norway.  It doesn't seem to have any relation to that country.  There's a small town in Maine called Norway, and that town has a lot of red pine around it.  But Norway (Maine) didn't get its name until it was incorporated in 1797, and the original intention was to call it Norage, which was a Native American name for waterfalls.  There doesn't seem to be any information online to hint at when Norway pine started to be called as such, but if it pre-dates the founding of the town of Norway, then it certainly can't be named after the town.  Incidentally, Norway (Maine) was once very famous as the alleged "snowshoe capital of the world."  Red pine was used in the manufacture of snowshoes.  That still doesn't explain the name properly.  I like to pretend that there was once a famous giant lumberjack from Norway with a bushy red beard, and the tree was named after this lumberjack.  But that's unlikely.  It would be a good story though, if it was true.

The Norway pine is a conifer.  Conifers are cone-bearing trees.  The cones of the Norway pine are ovoid in shape, which means that they're egg-shaped.  They're also fairly close in size to regular [chicken] eggs that you'd find at a grocery store, ie. about 5-6cm long when they're still closed.

The needles of the Norway pine are a dark yellow-green, and always come in pairs.  Needles on pine trees always come in pairs, triplets, or groups of five, but the number depends upon the species.  These needles can be fairly long, usually about 15cm or so, and like many other long-needled pines, the needles can be fairly brittle.  Here's a close-up photo of the needles and some opened cones on a Norway pine:

This species is not shade-tolerant.  It wants open ground and a lot of sunlight to grow successfully.  Despite wanting sunshine, it also likes cool summers and cold winters, which is why it thrives in Canada but not in the southern States.  If climate change causes temperatures to rise in the future, we may see that Norway pine becomes almost entirely a Canadian tree.  Like most other pines, this species prefers well-drained sandy or loamy soils, rather than clay.

Unfortunately, the Norway pine is susceptible to a fairly large range of insect pests, including pine beetles, pine gall weevil, pine needle miner, tussock moth, and sawflies.  However, these problems are much worse in warm climates, and don't have as significant an impact on the population in Canada.

Here are three fun facts about the Norway pine:
1.  This species was planted in large quantities during very early tree planting programs in the United States.  During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corp planted millions of these trees.
2.  The Norway pine is the State Tree of Minnesota.  In fact, Minnesota is probably the only area where people usually refer to this species as Norway pine instead of red pine.
3.  This species was historically a favoured tree for the construction of log cabins, due to its very straight and clean trunks.

At Replant.ca Environmental, Norway pine is just one of a large number of species that we use on some of our projects!

Thanks for reading ...

- Jonathan Clark
www.replant-environmental.ca



Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests.  We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases.  We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world.  If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page.  Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!

Teachers are welcome to use content from this post for their classes.  If you know a teacher who might like to use this information, please share it with them!  The more that people learn about trees, the better our world will be.

To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website.  Thanks so much for your interest!

Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects.  Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.