Replant.ca Environmental

Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian organization whose vision is to help our global environment through planting trees. We build demonstration forests that are accessible to the public. We also plant in public parks, and we build carbon capture plantations that help mitigate climate change. Our operations are funded by NGO's, corporations, and numerous small donations from global citizens who know that their individual actions will help make a difference.

Showing posts with label red. Show all posts

Friday, January 8, 2021

The Sugar Maple tree (Acer saccharum)

Today's post will be talking about the sugar maple tree. The Latin name for this species is Acer saccharum. This tree is sometimes referred to as the sweet maple, curly maple, or rock maple.

While many Canadians immediate think of the red maple when they think of maple trees, this probably isn't the case if you're from Quebec. That's because the sugar maple is the main source of maple sap, which is distilled to make Canada's famous maple syrup! Of course, maple syrup can also be made from the sap of red maple and black maple trees, but sugar maple is unquestionably the best choice. Incidentally, if you've never heard of black maple, some people consider it to be a distinct species, and others consider it to be just a variety of sugar maple.

Within Canada, the range of the sugar maple is a very close overlap to the range of red maple. Here's a range map courtesy of Wikipedia:

If you're familiar with the range of red maple in the US, you'll immediately notice that sugar maple has a much smaller range. Sugar maple is not as tolerant of heat as red maple, so it's not found in southern ranges. This may be a problem someday. While red maple will probably continue to thrive in our climate as temperatures increase, sugar maple will have a harder time. Sugar maple needs cooler temperatures.

Sugar maples grow to be about the same size as (or just slightly larger than) red maples. A mature tree can often grow to thirty or even thirty-five meters in height (100-115 feet), and can be a meter (three feet) in diameter near the base of the tree. However, sugar maples generally live to be quite a bit older than red maples. It isn't uncommon for a sugar maple to live 200 years or more.

Sugar maples are quite fast growing, like red maples. A sugar maple can easily grow to five meters in height (15-18 feet) in less than a decade. However, unlike red maples, which start producing seed after just four or five years, the sugar maple doesn't start producing seeds for about thirty years!

The leaves of the sugar maple are unlike the red maple, because sugar maple leaves are not serrated. They do, however, have points on the ends of each lobe. Although the leaf on the Canadian flag is a generic stylized maple, it is very close to the shape of the sugar maple. Here's a photo:

Sugar maples are an important economic tree for many Canadians. Canada produces more than seventy percent of the world's maple syrup, and ninety percent of that comes from Quebec. If you've never spent a day working in a sugar shack, you're missing out!

The sugar maple's sugar content is usually rated around 2.0 or slightly higher. This means that the sap is 2.0% sugar. When the sap is boiled, most of the extra water needs to be boiled off, strengthening the concentration of sugar. If you start with about forty litres of sap before boiling it down, you're left with only about a litre remaining by the time the sugar is concentrated enough to be a good syrup. Since a single mature tree only produces anywhere from twenty to sixty litres of sap in a harvest year, you can often only produce roughly one full 1-litre jug of maple syrup from a mature tree.

Here are a few fun facts about sugar maples:

1. The oldest known sugar maple is a tree known as the "Comfort Tree." It's located in North Pelham (in Ontario's Niagara region) and it is estimated to be around 500 years old. This tree is a protected heritage tree.

2. When the leaves change colour in the fall, sometimes the leaves of the sugar maple will change past a bright red and turn a deep purple before they then turn brown.

3. Sugar maples produce huge numbers of seeds. It's a good thing that they do, since a lot of small animals seek these seeds as a preferred source of food. If you want to have rabbits and other small animals in your yard, plant some sugar maples! Just remember that it takes a long time before they'll bear seed.

At Replant.ca Environmental, we frequently include sugar maples in our species mixes, especially when planting in public parks and higher-visibility sites. They are a beautiful tree, and since they grow faster than many conifers, they're very visible within new forests during the months that they have leaves. Here's a photo of some of the sugar maple seedlings that we were planting on several of our projects this past fall:

Thanks for reading!

- Jonathan "Scooter" 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!

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 Red Maple tree (Acer rubrum)

Today we'll talk about the red maple tree, which many people think of as "Canada's tree." After all, a red-coloured generic maple leaf is featured on Canada's national flag. The Latin name for the red maple is the Acer rubrum. Some people also refer to this species as the water maple, the swamp maple, or the soft maple.

Red maple gets its name due to the brilliant red colour of the leaves before they drop in the fall. Here's a photo of a red maple, which stands out brilliantly in the early fall when surrounded by other species with leaves that stay green.

Even though many Canadians think of the red maple as "our" tree, it only grows throughout parts of Canada. Its range in the US is much larger! In Canada, red maple can be found very commonly throughout southern Ontario, southern Quebec, and the Maritime provinces. However, in the US, the range extends through all of the northeastern and southeastern parts of the country, right down to the southern tip of Florida and west into Texas. That's great, because if global warming raises our average temperatures in Canada in the next few decades, the red maple (and many other hardwoods) will thrive. Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

This species can grow to be a fairly large tree. It is common for mature trees to be as much as thirty meters in height (100 feet) and to have a diameter at breast height that is a full meter thick (three feet). Of course, a tree grown in the open can have an even thicker trunk than one grown in a forest, which is the case with most species.

Red maple has a fairly thin bark. It is easy for this bark to become damaged by animals or other reasons, in which case fungi may be able to get into the tree, eventually leading to heart rot of the core of the tree. Although this maple can grow to be fairly large, it is not an extremely long lasting tree like many conifers. A mature red maple will often live for more than a century when left alone, but this is still not as long as species such as red spruce or eastern white pine.

Red maple has an ability to thrive in many types of ecosystems. It's a pioneer species, coming in rapidly after a forest has been disturbed. Thanks to its versatility, it can grow in direct sunlight or shade, in elevations from sea level to almost a thousand meters (3000 feet), in a wide pH range for soil acidity, and in everything from dry ground to poorly drained swamps. In fact, its ability to thrive in swampy areas is why it is often referred to as water maple or swamp maple.

As a forest matures, it is common for the red maples to eventually die out and be replaced by shade-tolerant succession species. However, due to widespread die-off of American elms and American chestnuts during the last couple of centuries, red maple is slowly becoming a more important component of mature forests throughout the eastern United States.

The leaves of the red maple are a very distinct feature of the species, as we've already mentioned. Here's a photo of some leaves before they start to turn colour in the fall:

And of course, you can compare their shape as being somewhat similar to that of the Canadian flag:

I should note that the maple leaf on the Canadian flag is NOT actually the red maple. It's a generic or stylized maple design, sort of a blend between red and sugar and a few other maples. There are about ten types of maple trees in Canada.

Red maple leaves have a very distinct shape. They also have slightly serrated edges, which helps distinguish them from the leaves of other maples. In the fall, as they are getting ready to die and fall from the tree, they lose their green colour and turn yellow/orange and sometimes to a bright red. Trees with male flowers are more likely to turn a brilliant red than trees with female flowers. Also, trees in colder areas (further north, higher elevation) are also more likely to be be a bright red instead of a more subdued orange.

One drawback with red maples: If you have horses, don't plant red maples in their paddocks or pastures. The leaves are toxic to horses.

Here are a few fun facts about red maple trees:

1. The red maple is the state tree of Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders love their reds, it seems. Their state bird is the red hen, and even the name Rhode Island comes from a Dutch reference to "reddish." That could refer to the reddish clay, or it may refer to the reddish colour of the maples.

2. Wood ducks often like to nest inside the cavities of swamp maples.

3. Red maples grow quite quickly, and can start producing seed when they are just four or five years old.

4. Red maple seeds are called samara, which is a seed type that means "dried fruit with wing." The seeds grow on the tree in pairs. As they fall, they separate and rotate slowly to the ground. This means that the wind is able to carry the seeds a fair distance away from the tree, to help propagate the species more widely. These seeds are fairly large (about an inch long) and are quite easy to spot. Here's a photo of a connected pair:

At Replant.ca Environmental, we sometimes plant red maple seedlings. There's no need to plant them in harvested or damaged areas that held red maple previously, because they regenerate quite well naturally. However, it can be helpful to plant this type of tree as part of a broader species mix in some afforestation projects where natural regen is unlikely, such as when turning unused pastureland back to forest. Here's a photo of some of the red maple seedlings that we were planting on several of our projects this past fall:

Thanks for reading!

- Jonathan Clark

www.replant-environmental.ca

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!

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

The Red Oak tree (Quercus rubra)

In today's post, I'm going to talk about the red oak, or more specifically the northern red oak. There is also a southern red oak, which is commonly known as Spanish oak. However, we're focusing on Quercus rubra, which is sometimes referred to as Champion Oak. We certainly think that it's a champ. Northern red oak is one of more than six hundred different oak species found around the world.

Red oak is more widely distributed throughout the central-eastern and northeastern US than it is in Canada, although it can be found quite easily throughout eastern Canada, southern Quebec, and southern Ontario. Incidentally, the red oak is the provincial tree of Prince Edward Island! It is also the state tree of New Jersey. Here's a range map for Quercus rubra, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The red oak is a deciduous (broadleaf) hardwood species. It has a very dense wood. In fact, it is denser than ash, chestnut, birch, mahogany, and walnut! While this makes it a desirable species for firewood, it's also the most commonly used hardwood in North America for woodworking and similar uses. You can find red oak in flooring, cabinets, pallets, coffins, railway ties, plywood, wine barrels, and many other applications.

"Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow." You've probably heard that phrase before. It first appeared in print in 1841 in a book called, "The Philosophical Emperor, A Political Experiment." (A.B. Johnson). But how large do they really grow? Well, that depends on the company that they keep. In a forest, a mature oak will often grow to 30 meters in height (almost 100 feet), with a trunk diameter at breast height of up to one meter (three feet). However, some oak trees grow out in the open, whether it is by chance (in nature) or by design (planted). Oak trees that grow in the open adapt to the higher impact of winds. These individual trees will develop deeper roots than red oak in forests, and don't put on as much height. Finally, they'll often develop much thicker trunks to keep themselves from blowing over, sometimes approaching 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter!

The seeds of the oak tree have a unique name, acorns. I tried to find out where that word came from. I found different suggestions. Some sources say that the name comes from the word "akran" in the Gothic language (an east Germanic language). Other sources say that the name comes from the word "aecern," which means berry or fruit in Old English. Perhaps it came from both languages, as some languages borrowed from each other thanks to the influence of travelers.

Acorns are very healthy to eat, although consumption by modern humans is uncommon. However, within the animal kingdom, acorns are a staple to many squirrels, mice, and other rodents. They're consumed in large quantities by bears, wild pigs, and deer. Many birds will eat them, especially jays, ducks, and woodpeckers. Acorns are rich in proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Unfortunately, the tannins found in acorns make them taste quite bitter to humans, which is why they aren't a popular food for us. Red oak acorns are especially bitter compared to acorns from other oak species, so it probably isn't worth your while to go foraging. If you do decide to try them for a snack, do some extensive research first. They should never be eaten raw. To cook them, you'll first have to learn to blanch out the tannins, which can be quite unhealthy. Also, a significant percentage of people are allergic to tree nuts, so eating acorns could be quite dangerous and lead to anaphylactic shock. Proceed with great caution! Acorns (and oak leaves) are also very unhealthy for horses.

Here is a photo of some acorns that we picked a few weeks ago:

Acorns are pretty. And quite recognizable. The leaves of the oak are also very recognizable, thanks to the large serrations on their edges. Here's a photo:

Oak leaves are different than the leaves of most other deciduous species, because some of them typically cling to the tree long after leaves of most other hardwoods have dropped. Nobody is entirely certain why this happens, but not too many species exhibit this behaviour. Trees that keep many of their old leaves through the winter are called marcescent species.

As far as deciduous trees grow, northern red oak grows fairly quickly. Even in the northern extent of its range (in Canada), the tree can grow to be as much as 5m high (16 feet) in just ten years. Red oak trees can have a very long life span. If they aren't disturbed by humans, insects, or wildfire, these trees can often live to be more than 300 years old.

Here are some fun facts about red oak trees:

- Acorns take two years to mature before they fall from the tree. This isn't the case with all species of oaks, but it applies to red oak. Also, some individual oak trees will produce hundreds of thousands of acorns in their lifetime!

- These trees are easy to grow, once you find acorns. The general method is to pick the acorns in the fall, keep them chilled (but not frozen) over winter, then to plant them in moist soil in the spring. Some people plant them indoors in small pots first (keeping the soil quite moist) and then transplant them outdoors once the seedlings have become established. There are lots of web sites that give more detailed recommendations.

- Red oak trees, like most humans, prefer sunshine. If you're going to grow them, you should plant them in the open rather than underneath an existing forest canopy.

- Oak trees first became a distinct species about 65 million trees ago. This means that they are much older than humans, and they started to appear about the same time that the dinosaurs died off.

Here is a photo of some of our red oak seedlings:

Thanks for reading!
- Jonathan Clark
www.replant-environmental.ca

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

The Tamarack tree (Larix laricina)

In this post, I'm going to take a close look at a tree with many names, but which most Canadians refer to as the Tamarack. The Latin name for this species is Larix laricina, but in addition to being called the tamarack in common usage, it's also referred to as eastern larch, black larch, red larch, hackmatack, or American larch. In this case, "American" is a reference to North American, not to the United States. In the northern dialect of the Eastern James Bay Cree, it is called the waachinaakin.

Here's a photo of a young tamarack tree:

The tamarack is a fairly unique tree among the conifers. I'm excited to explain that in a minute, but first we should quickly look at the range. If you look at our recent post about black spruce trees, you'll see that the range maps of these two species overlap almost perfectly. The black spruce has a slightly larger range, but they are very similar overall. And that means that it's pretty easy to find tamarack through most parts of Canada. Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

I already referred to the tamarack as being fairly unique among conifers. To explain why, I have to review some definitions. A conifer is a tree that is cone-bearing. Most people equate conifers with evergreens. Evergreen is a slang term for a tree that stays green throughout the entire year. Most conifers do retain their leaves (needles) through the winter, so yes, most conifers are also evergreens.

Do you know what a deciduous tree is? Most people assume that any broad-leaf tree is a deciduous tree. However, that's not quite correct. Broad-leaf is a slang term for any type of leaf that is broad. No surprises there. Most people say that all trees have either [broad] leaves or needles. Is there any advantage for a tree in having needles? Well, needles are more waterproof and more wind-proof than broad leaves.

Anyway, let's get back to the point. The true definition of a deciduous tree is one that sheds its needles annually. In cold regions such as Canada, most broad-leafed trees shed their needles every year, so the terms are somewhat synonymous. But here's where the tamarack bends the rules. The tamarack is a needle-bearing tree, but it drops its needles every year, then grows a new set in the spring. Therefore, the tamarack is both coniferous (cone-bearing) and deciduous (shedding leaves annually). It is therefore known as a deciduous conifer. The tamarack and the western larch are the only two common deciduous conifers found in Canada.

When the tamarack is about to lose its needles in the fall, they turn a beautiful golden-yellow colour, making these trees very easy to spot in some areas. Here's are two photos that I took in October, where you can very easily identify the brightly coloured tamarack:

If you'd like to learn more about deciduous conifers, check out this article:
https://www.thespruce.com/what-are-deciduous-conifers-3269799

Now that we've covered the most exciting thing about the tamarack, let's get back to basics with a list of common characteristics:
- Extremely tolerant of cold. Temperatures of -70^oC don't bother this species.
- Maximum height usually not much more than 15 meters (50 feet).
- Maximum diameter usually not much more than half a meter (a foot and a half).
- The average lifespan of a mature tree is around 150 years.
- Needles occur in large groups of up to 20 needles per cluster.
- Often found in wet swampy or boggy conditions, growing alongside black spruce.
- Strangely enough, tamarack is also a good pioneer species in fresh burns, at least until it gets overtaken by other species.

Here's a close-up of the needles and cones:

Even when green, tamarack has a very sparse look to it. It provides very little shade compared to most trees, which allows a thick undergrowth of mosses and shrubs to thrive underneath the tree. Speaking of shade, tamarack itself is a very shade intolerant tree. If you plant it underneath other trees, or even under competing shrubs or vegetation, the mortality rate is quite high. This is a pioneer species, and in the long term, is usually succeeded first by black spruce, and then by other species.

Tamarack wood is quite flexible. Native Americans often used this species for making snowshoes. It isn't a major commercial species, although it's very resistant to rot from moisture (just like cedar), so it is a good option for fence poles and similar applications. My dad was a land surveyor, and he mentioned that tamarack is a good choice if you need to leave a pole in the ground for some time.

Fun facts:

1. This is quite unrelated to the tamarack, but you'll notice that I've been throwing around the words "swamp" and "bog" fairly interchangeably. Actually, there is a difference. There are four distinct types of wetlands: swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens. But I'll save that for another blog post. I only bring that up because tamaracks thrive near or even in various types of wetlands.

2. The tamarack is Canada's most northerly tree, found as far north as the 72nd degree of latitude. That's quite far north of the Arctic Circle (which is at approximately 66.5 degrees north latitude). Therefore, tamarack trees can grow in the land of White Nights.

3. The Ojibwa used tamarack roots as a "thread" to sew together pieces of birch bark when making canoes, due to rot resistance and flexibility.

Here's a photo of a tamarack with its needles dropped during the winter. Despite appearances, this is a healthy tree! It's not a great photo, with the grey sky in the background, but if we get a day with deep blue sky I'll try to upgrade the photo:

And here is a photo of some of our tamarack seedlings:

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!

Saturday, January 11, 2020

The Red Spruce tree (Picea rubens)

For this week's look at various trees that we plant at Replant.ca Environmental, I'm going to focus on the red spruce. As is common with many different tree species, this one is known by many names. The other names that I'm most accustomed to hearing are eastern spruce, Maritime spruce, and yellow spruce. The Latin name is Picea rubens.

Red spruce is an extremely common and valuable tree in eastern Canadian forestry. Due to its versatility and economic value, it is the most commonly planted tree in the Maritime provinces. Although it isn't the fastest-growing conifer, it is considered to be a late succession tree. This means that it "catches up and wins," like the tortoise in the fable of "the tortoise and the hare." The red spruce can often live to be 250-400 years old.

When the red spruce is young, it prefers to grow in moist soils. It helps if the groundwater moisture is aerated. Well-drained soils, or soils that are moistened by flowing water, are ideal. However, red spruce is quite versatile, and will still thrive in many other types of ground conditions. Red spruce is quite biologically similar to black spruce (a species which does really well in swampy areas with more stagnant water). Red spruce is also extremely shade-tolerant when it is young. This is important, because spruce trees generally grow more slowly than other conifers (such as pine) for the first decade or two. Due to this slower start, spruce usually fail to get above competing grass and vegetation for several years. However, they don't usually get choked out by plant competition due to their shade tolerance.

When a red spruce matures, it can be twenty to twenty-five meters in height (seventy to eighty feet). A mature tree will often achieve a DBH (diameter at breast height) of 50cm to 60cm (up to two feet). Red spruce often grows straighter than conifers such as red pine and white pine. Although the red spruce doesn't grow as large as an eastern white pine, it's a beautiful and long-lived species in its own right. Perhaps this is why the red spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia.

Red spruce is mostly an eastern Canadian and northeast US seaboard species. Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Spruce needles and balsam fir needles often look very similar to someone who doesn't spend a lot of time in the woods. However, there's a neat trick that you can do to distinguish between them. Spruce needles are four-sided. When you put a needle between two fingers and try to "roll" it, it rolls easily. Balsam fir needles are three-sided but their shape is like a very flattened triangle. Due to this shape, balsam fir needles don't roll easily between your fingers. This trick can still be a bit confusing. If you use a lot of pressure, it's still possible to "roll" the needles of a balsam fir. And if the spruce needles are sticky or if your fingers are rough, they don't necessarily roll perfectly. However, if you are out in the woods and see two trees that look slightly different, and you think one is a spruce and one is a fir, try the needle-roll test. Also, try grabbing a branch and squeezing. Be careful though! Spruce needles are much more pointy at the ends, so they'll feel a lot more prickly than fir needles.

If you're looking at the trunk of a juvenile tree, the appearance of spruce and fir are quite different. Spruce trees will look scaly, and usually have a yellowish-brown or reddish-brown colour. They will also have more needles on the trunk. Conversely, a juvenile balsam fir tree will usually have grey bark, and it's usually quite smooth with almost no needles, except maybe some spare needles on the top foot or so of the tree. The bark of each of these trees becomes much more rough as the trees passes the juvenile stage. Both types of trees will develop vertical furrows on the bark, although the furrows will be more pronounced on spruce trees.

Take a close look at the underside of this red spruce branch. What obvious colour patterns do you see?

When you look at a red spruce branch on a young tree, the new growth has a yellowish tinge, and the older growth has a brownish tinge.

Here are four interesting facts about the red spruce:

1. This tree is monoecious. This means that individual flowers (cones) are either male or female, but both sexes can be found on the same tree. The cones are cross-pollinated by wind.

2. Red spruce trees do not do well in areas with high atmospheric pollution, or "acid rain" (rain contaminated by industrial smoke and chemicals). This is one more reason to keep our earth clean. There's a slogan that says, "The solution to pollution is dilution." I think a better solution is to avoid polluting in the first place.

3. Red spruce is the most sought-after wood for making most musical instruments.

4. Spruce twigs can be boiled with sugar, and the resulting liquid can be used to make spruce beer. I think a lot of people would prefer spruce beer to hemlock tea.

As I mentioned, the red spruce is the most economically valuable species in the Maritime provinces, and is planted very frequently in post-logging operations. Unfortunately, in that type of work, the logging companies generally plant it as a monoculture. At Replant.ca Environmental, we endorse biodiversity. Red spruce is definitely an important species within our planting mixes, but we never plant it by itself. Here's a photo of some of our red spruce seedlings:

Saturday, November 2, 2019

The White Spruce tree (Picea glauca)

For this week's featured species, we're going to look at the White Spruce. The proper Latin name for this species is Picea glauca. White spruce is sometimes referred to as "Canadian spruce," although that's not an official name of any sort.

Some people refer to Engelmann spruce as white spruce, but that's a different species. Engelmann spruce is found at elevation in southern BC at the western US. Engelmann spruce is often crossed with true white spruce to create a hardy hybrid that is planted all over western Canada.

Here's a photo that I took of a white spruce, which I believe was probably about 30-40 years old:

The white spruce is a very plentiful tree. It's very healthy, and has a broad range. You can find this species all across Canada, except for the very southern reaches of BC and Alberta, and the west coast of BC (where Sitka spruce takes over). Here's a range map from Wikipedia:

Spruce trees, in general, love water. They typically prefer flowing (aerated) water, although black spruce can thrive in some pretty fetid swampy areas. White spruce is certainly quite happy to grow in moisture-laden soils. White spruce, like all other spruce trees, is also a very shade-tolerant tree. However, it is slightly less shade tolerant than red spruce (red spruce is a common tree in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia). Regardless, white spruce will do adequately when planted under a canopy, or in areas with high brush and vegetation competition. However, white spruce seedlings can be susceptible to spring frosts. Having brush or a mature canopy over young seedlings acts to protect them until they're older.

When I was very young, I thought that all cones, regardless of what species of conifer the cone came from, were called pine cones. Of course, that was that naivete of a young child. The cones on spruce trees are called spruce cones. White spruce has two types of cones, male and female. Each tree contains both types. The male cones produce pollen, which floats to the female cones to fertilize the seed. After the cones are fertilized, it takes about three months for them to mature and open. When the cones open, the seed is dispersed fairly far from the tree, due to small wings on each seed. It is common for seed to spread more than 100m from the parent tree, thanks to winds. Although the number of seeds per cone varies, there are usually at least a few dozen seeds in a cone, and sometimes more than a hundred.

A mature white spruce will often live to be more than 200 years old. Some trees live to be many times older than that. After the first century, as long as the site and growing conditions are adequate, a white spruce will often reach 30m (100 feet) in height, and can have a diameter of more than a meter (3 feet) at the base. This species can capture very large amounts of carbon. Our Walker Road property has some beautiful mature white spruce that are starting to approach this size.

Although we don't harvest any of our trees at Replant.ca Environmental, white spruce is often used in the manufacture of acoustic guitars.

One way to distinguish white spruce from red spruce is by the colour of the needles. The white spruce needles are a bluish-green shade, in contrast to the more yellow-green shade of red spruce needles.

This year, we've planted many thousands of white spruce seedlings at Replant.ca Environmental. Here's a photo of some of them:

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!