Picea rubens (2).
Common Names
Red spruce, eastern spruce, yellow spruce, épinette rouge (Canadian French) (3).Taxonomic notes
Syn: Picea australis Small 1903; P. nigra (Aiton) Link var. rubra (DuRoi) Engelmann; P. rubra (DuRoi) Link 1831, not A. Dietrich 1824. In eastern Canada this species hybridizes to a limited extent with P. mariana (Gordon 1976) (3).Description
Trees to 40 m tall and 100 cm dbh; "crown narrowly conic. Bark gray-brown to reddish brown. Branches horizontally spreading; twigs not pendent, rather stout, yellow-brown, densely pubescent to glabrate. Buds reddish brown, 5-8 mm, apex acute. Leaves 0.8-2.5(3) cm, 4-angled in cross section, somewhat flexuous, yellow-green to dark green, not glaucous, bearing stomates on all surfaces, apex mostly acute to sharp-pointed. Seed cones 2.3-4.5(5) cm; scales broadly fan-shaped, broadest near apex, 8-12 × 8-12 mm, stiff, margin at apex entire to irregularly toothed. 2 n =24" (3). Cones ovoid, glossy, orange-brown (c.f. P. mariana ), fusiform, matte.Range
Canada: Ontario, Québec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia; France: St. Pierre and Miquelon; USA: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee; at 0-2000 m in upper montane to subalpine forests (3). See also (6). USDA hardiness zone 3.Big Tree
Height 37 m, dbh 137 cm, crown spread 12 m, located in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee (4).Oldest
A crossdated age of 405 years for a specimen from Nancy Brook, NH collected by Paul Krusic (5). I believe this is from a living tree, collected in the late 1980s or early 1990s.Dendrochronology
Ethnobotany
Observations
Can be readily seen in high elevation forests of the Appalachian Mountains, including the Great Smokies National Park (NC/TN), the White Mountains (NH) and the Adirondacks (NY).Remarks
Air pollution, including both acid preciptiation and nitrogen deposition, has been implicated in extensive dieback of red spruce forests in the Appalachian Mountains.Red spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia (3).
Citations
(1) Silba 1986 .(2) Elias 1987 .
(3) Ronald J. Taylor at the Flora of North America web site .
(4) American Forests 1996 .
(5) Brown 1996 .
(6) Robert S. Thompson, Katherine H. Anderson and Patrick J. Bartlein. 1999. Atlas of Relations Between Climatic Parameters and Distributions of Important Trees and Shrubs in North America. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1650 A&B. URL= http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/pub/ppapers/p1650-a/pages/conifers.html , accessed 22-Jan-2000.
See also:
Burns & Honkala 1990
.
Farjon 1990
.
Little 1980
.
FEIS database
.
Morgenstern & Farrar 1964.
This page co-edited with Michael P. Frankis, Dec-1998.
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This page is from the Gymnosperm Database
URL: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/2285/pi/pic/rubens.htm
Edited by Christopher J. Earle
E-mail:
earlecj@earthlink.com
Last modified on 24-Jan-2000