Plant

Spruce

Picea (genus)

Also known as: Picea

A genus of around 35 species of evergreen coniferous trees in the family Pinaceae — distributed across the temperate and boreal Northern Hemisphere. The Norway spruce (*Picea abies*) is one of the most-planted European Christmas-tree species and the source of much European softwood lumber; the Sitka spruce (*Picea sitchensis*) is the largest member of the genus and dominates the temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest. The Old Tjikko, a 9,560-year-old Norway spruce in Sweden's Fulufjället National Park, may be the world's oldest single living tree — its visible trunk is much younger, but the underlying root system has been alive continuously since the last glacial retreat.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons — see source for license.

Scientific

Picea (family Pinaceae) contains ~35 species across the temperate and boreal Northern Hemisphere. Distinguishing features from related conifer genera:

Spruce vs. fir — spruce needles emerge from small woody pegs on the branch (visible after needle drop); fir needles emerge directly from the branch surface
Spruce vs. pine — spruce needles are attached singly; pines are in bundles of 2–5

Principal species:

Picea abies — Norway spruce; native to northern and central Europe; most-planted European Christmas tree
Picea sitchensis — Sitka spruce; Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest; the largest member of the genus (some specimens over 90 m tall)
Picea engelmannii — Engelmann spruce; western North American mountains
Picea glauca — white spruce; circumpolar boreal
Picea mariana — [[black-spruce|black spruce]]; covered separately at [[black-spruce]]

Old Tjikko

The Old Tjikko on Fulufjället, Sweden — a small individual Norway spruce — has a 9,560-year-old underlying root system. The visible trunk is much younger (probably ~600 years), but the genetically-identical root system has been alive continuously since the post-glacial colonization of the area. By the strict definition of “individual living organism,” Old Tjikko is the oldest documented single living tree on Earth — though it’s a clonal rather than non-clonal record (the [[pine]] entry’s bristlecone pine record is for non-clonal trees).

Cultural and economic

Norway spruce is the canonical European Christmas tree species — the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree (gifted annually by Norway to the UK since 1947) is a Norway spruce. Sitka spruce wood was the principal material of WWI and early WWII aircraft construction (especially the Mosquito and the wooden de Havilland designs) due to its exceptionally high strength-to-weight ratio. Modern violin tops are still preferentially made of slow-grown spruce.

Spruce stands are the dominant tree of the boreal forest — the largest single forest biome on Earth, stretching across Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, and Siberia.

Sources

Wikipedia — Spruce

A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].

What links here, and how

Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.

Cultural

shares approach with

Larch auto-linked from body mention
Poplar auto-linked from body mention

General