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West Virginia Trees

Chapter 37: RED SPRUCE
By A. B. Brooks
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Nature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

A practical field guide to the native and introduced trees of West Virginia, providing keys based mainly on leaves and fruits, concise family and species descriptions, and detailed line drawings for about 101 native species. It organizes trees by botanical families, gives brief flower notes, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for identifying specimens; occasional introduced species and shrubs are noted. The bulletin emphasizes simplicity for non-specialists, offers measurements and habit descriptions for each species, and includes administrative prefatory material. Its aim is to aid lay readers and students in tree identification and to encourage local interest in forestry.

RED SPRUCE

Picea rubra, (DuRoi) Deitr.

Form.—Height 70-80 feet, diameter 2-3 feet; trunk straight, continuous, free from limbs to a considerable height when in close stands; crown conical; limbs somewhat drooping below, horizontal in the middle, ascending above.

Leaves.—Crowded and diverging in all directions from the twig; rounded or acute points, ½-⅝ inch long, dark yellow-green.

Flowers.—April-May; monoecious; staminate oval, almost sessile, red; pistillate oblong, with thin rounded scales.

Fruit.—Cones ovate-oblong, narrowed from middle to acute apex; 1¼-2 inches long; scales reddish-brown with entire margins.

Bark.—Roughened by thin, irregular-shaped brown scales.

Wood.—Light, soft, close-grained, not strong, pale in color, with whitish sapwood.

Range.—Newfoundland to West Virginia and southward along the Alleghany Mountains to northern Georgia, west to Minnesota.

Distribution in West Virginia.—Growing at high elevation in Grant, Tucker, Randolph, Pendleton, Pocahontas, Webster, Nicholas and Greenbrier counties. Now largely removed by lumbermen.

Habitat.—Well-drained uplands; also on mountain tops and occasionally on borders of swamps.

Notes.—Since this species is the only native spruce in West Virginia there is no cause for confusing it with anything else. Norway spruce has much larger cones. Originally red spruce was one of our principal lumber trees, but when it is removed there is but little natural reproduction. Often planted for shade. Wood used for construction, musical instruments, furniture, aeroplanes and paper pulp.