Norway Spruce trees near Bridgnorth, Shropshire UK
Image details
Contributor:
MH Country / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
B4J236File size:
66.3 MB (3.8 MB Compressed download)Releases:
Model - no | Property - noDo I need a release?Dimensions:
5906 x 3922 px | 50 x 33.2 cm | 19.7 x 13.1 inches | 300dpiDate taken:
2008Location:
Ditton Priors, Shropshire, England, UKMore information:
Norway Spruce (Picea abies) is a species of spruce native to Europe. It is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to 35-55 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 1-1.5 m. 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.[1][2][3][4][5] The Norway Spruce grows throughout 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 hard to define, due to extensive hybridisation and intergradation with the Siberian Spruce (Picea obovata, syn. P. abies subsp. obovata), 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 x fennica (or P. × 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.