Norway spruce (Picea abies)

Pine family (Pinaceae)

Evergreen tree of heights 40-50 m and breast-height diameter 1.5-2 m. Lives up to 400 years. Crown cone-shaped. Bark is red-brown in colour, with shallow fissures and scaly. Needles on woody basal sheaths shiny and sharp-pointed, 1-2.5(3.5) cm long. Monoecious. Separate male or female flowers are different, pollination by means of wind. Cones brown, hanging down, 10-15(20) cm long, falling when mature. Small, winged seeds provide food for woodpeckers, squirrels and shrews, amongst others. Flowers Apr.-May. Shade tolerant.

Grows on mesic and moist, nutrient-poor or moderately-fertile soils. Forms spruce forest, but also an admixture species in almost all types of forest in Poland.

Descriptions devised by the team at the Independent Department of Forest Botany, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, i.e. L. Witkowska-Żuk, K. Marciszewska, W. Ciurzycki, A. Obidziński and P. Zaniewski.