Picea abies

What to Eat

Edible parts: Flowers, Inner bark, Seeds, Tea, Shoots, Resin, Gum

Young male catkins can be eaten raw or cooked and are used as a flavouring. Immature female cones are edible cooked; the central portion, when roasted, is sweet and syrupy. Inner bark can be dried, ground into a powder and used as a thickener in soups or added to cereals when making bread — it is an emergency food for use when all else fails. The seed is edible raw, rich in oil with a pleasant, slightly resinous flavour, but is too small and fiddly to be worthwhile unless food is scarce. A refreshing tea rich in vitamin C can be made from young shoot tips; these tips are also used in making spruce beer.

Where to Find It

It is a temperate plant. It is frost hardy. It is fast growing. It will grow on most soils. It needs full sunlight. It is cultivated in China. It grows in upland sites in Asia, In Hobart Botanical gardens. It grows between 1000 and 2300 m altitude in Northern Europe. It suits hardiness zones 2-9. Arboretum Tasmania. National Arboretum Canberra.

Albania, Australia, Austria, Balkans, Belarus, Bosnia, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Estonia, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mediterranean, North America, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Scandinavia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tasmania, Ukraine, USA, Yugoslavia,

How to Identify

A large tree. It grows 22-39-60 m tall and spreads 4.5-7.5 m wide. The trunk can be 1.3-6 m across. It has a conical shape. The secondary branches droop. The leaves are needle-like and dark green above but paler underneath. They are single and stiff. They are 12-24 mm long. They are bent away form the lower side of the twig. Male flowers are yellow and in clusters at the ends of twigs. Female flowers are pink. The fruit are cones which start dark red and become cigar shaped and glossy. They are 10-20 cm long. They change from green flecked with purple to light brown. There are many cultivated varieties.

How to Grow

Plants are grown from seed.

Propagation: Stratification will likely improve germination, so sow fresh seed in autumn in a cold frame if possible. Sow stored seed as early in the year as possible in a cold frame in a position of light shade; do not allow seed to dry out, and store it in a cool place. Prick out seedlings into individual pots when large enough to handle and grow on in a greenhouse or cold frame for their first winter; plant out in early summer of the following year or grow on in an outdoor nursery bed for a further year. Protection from spring frosts may be needed. Cuttings of semi-ripe terminal shoots, 5–8cm long, taken in August in a frame with frost protection, form roots in spring. Cuttings of mature terminal shoots, 5–10cm long, taken in September/October in a cold frame, take 12 months to root. Cuttings of soft to semi-ripe wood taken in early summer in a frame are slow but reliable.

Medicinal Uses

The buds, leaves and resin are antibiotic, antiseptic, balsamic, expectorant and sedative. A pitch or resin obtained from the trunk is rubefacient and stimulant, used externally in plasters for its healing and antiseptic properties. A poultice of the sap or gum has been used to treat the pain of boils and abscesses.

Other Uses

The tree yields Burgundy pitch and Jura turpentine, obtained by making incisions in the trunk and scraping out the resin some months later. Burgundy pitch is used as a varnish and in medicinal plasters, and is a strong adhesive. The turpentine serves as a waterproofer and wood preservative. An essential oil from the leaves is used in perfumery. The seed contains 30% fatty oil used in varnish production. The bark contains tannin and has been widely used in Europe as a tannin source, containing up to 13%; yields can be doubled by heating or steaming the bark as soon as possible after felling. The tree is fairly wind-resistant and fast-growing, making it useful for shelterbelts. The dwarf cultivar 'Inversa' can be grown as ground cover in a sunny position; cultivars 'Reflexa' and 'Procumbens' are also suitable, best spaced about 1 metre apart each way. Wood is medium hard, fairly elastic, durable under water, light in weight and colour, and is used for general carpentry, joinery and musical instruments. It is also highly valued for paper pulp production.

Picea abies, the Norway spruce or European spruce, is a species of spruce native to Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. It has branchlets that typically hang downwards, and the longest cones of any spruce, 9–17 cm long. It is very closely related to the Siberian spruce (Picea obovata), which replaces it east of the Ural Mountains, and with which it hybridises freely. The Norway spruce has a wide distribution, being planted for its wood, and is the species used as a Christmas tree in several countries around the world. It was the first gymnosperm to have its genome sequenced. The Latin specific epithet abies means "like Abies, Fir tree".

Production

It is fast growing.

Other Information

The shoots are foraged and eaten in restaurants in Sweden.

Notes

There are between 30 and 45 species of Picea.

More from Pinaceae

Abies alba

Silver fir, European silver fir

Abies amabilis

Amabilis fir, Cascades fir, Pacific Silver fir

Abies balsamea - (L.)Mill.

Balsam Fir

Abies cilicica

Abies cilicica subsp. isaurica

Abies concolor - (Gordon.&Glend.)Lindl. ex Hildebrand.

Colorado Fir, White fir