Picea Abies (Norway Spruce)

The Norway Spruce (Picea Abies) is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to 115 to 180 feet tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 3 to 5 feet thick.

It is native to northeast Europe from Norway 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 usually given as the Ural Mountains.

The Norway Spruce is one of the most widely planted spruces, both in and outside of its native range, used in forestry for timber and paper production, and as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens.

It is also widely planted for use as a Christmas tree. Every Christmas, the Norwegian capital city of Oslo provides the cities of New York, London and Washington D.C. with a Norwegian spruce, which is placed at the most central square of each city. This is mainly a sign of gratitude for the aid these countries gave during the Second World War.

The shoots of the Picea Abies (Norway Spruce) are orange-brown and glabrous (hairless).

The leaves are needle-like, 0.5 to 1.0 inch long, quadrangular in cross-section (not flattened), and dark green on all four sides with inconspicuous stomatal lines.

The cones are 3.5 to 7.0 inches long (the longest of any spruce), and have bluntly to sharply triangular-pointed scale tips. They are green or reddish, maturing brown 5 to 7 months after pollination.

The seeds are black, 4 to 5 millimeters long, with a pale brown 15 millimeters (about 0.6 inch) wing.

The tallest measured tree, 207 feet tall, is in Perucica Virgin Forest, Sutjeska National Park, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

It can grow fast when young, up to 40 inches per year for the first 25 years under good conditions, but becomes slower once over around 65 feet tall.