Spruce Fir
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in botany, a popular name for many species of the genus Abies, specifically A. excelsa, a fine evergreen which sometimes reaches a height of 150 feet, with a straight, though not very thick trunk and a regular pyramidal form. Leaves scattered equally round the twigs; four-cornered, mucronate, dull green; cones cylindrical, pendulous, with blunt, sinuate, slightly toothed scales. It is a native of the N. of Germany and Norway, whence it is often called the Norway spruce. It is commonly planted in Southern Europe, and affords an excellent shelter for game. Its timber is the white deal of commerce. It is not so durable as the Scotch pine, but is prized for masts, spars, scaffolding poles, etc. In Norway it takes 70 or 80 years to arrive at maturity. By incision it_yields a resin whence turpentine and Burgundy pitch are manufactured. The white spruce fir (A. alba) has the leaves somewhat graucous, rather pungent; the cones narrow, oval, tapering, with even, undivided scales. It is found in North America, where it reaches the height of 40 to 50 feet. The black spruce is A. nigra, from the very cold parts of North America. The leaves are short, the cones ovate oblong, obtuse, with ragged, round scales. It grows to 70 or 80 feet high. The timber is very valuable. The black spruce of British Columbia is A. menziesii. The red spruce (A. rubra) is also North American. It is about 50 feet high, and its timber is used for sail yards.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The naming has been overhauled. Collier's in 1921 filed all these trees under Abies, the true firs; botanists now place spruces in their own genus, Picea, so A. excelsa is Picea abies (Norway spruce), A. alba is Picea glauca (white spruce), A. nigra is Picea mariana (black spruce), A. rubra is Picea rubens (red spruce), and the "black spruce of British Columbia," A. menziesii, is the Sitka spruce, Picea sitchensis. The uses have shifted too: Burgundy pitch and sail yards have gone, while spruce became the great raw material of mechanical wood pulp and newsprint, the standard soundboard of violins and guitars, and — as light, strong Sitka spruce — the framing of early aircraft. Norway spruce, described here mainly as timber and game cover, is now best known as Europe's commonest Christmas tree; a Norway spruce root system in Sweden, nicknamed Old Tjikko, has been dated by its clonal remains to roughly 9,500 years.
Written for this edition, 2026.