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Norway Spruce - Picea abies
It is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to between 115 and180 feet tall. The shoots are orange-brown and hairless and the leaves are needle-like, 12 to 24 mm long, quadrangular in cross-section (not flattened), and dark green on all four sides with inconspicuous lines. The cones are 9 to17 cm long (the longest of any spruce), and have bluntly to sharply triangular-pointed scale tips. They are green or reddish, maturing brown 5 to 7 months after pollination.
Sitka Spruce, and other ornamental Picea that may be planted in parks and gardens. Similar to other Pinaceae species with needles borne singly, but Picea have needles on brown petiole-like pegs
Leaves 4-angled in x-section, with faint whitish stripes; cones 10-20cm
Photos of cones and details of needles
Often planted, but does sometime regenerate in the wild.
All year round.
Evergreen.
Fairly widespread in Britain.
Occasional in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 64 of the 617 tetrads.
Leicestershire & Rutland Map
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Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2020+ | 2015-2019 | pre-2015
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Species profile
- Common names
- Norway Spruce
- Species group:
- Trees, Shrubs & Climbers
- Kingdom:
- Plantae
- Order:
- Pinales
- Family:
- Pinaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 21
- First record:
- 05/02/2012 (Nicholls, David)
- Last record:
- 21/06/2023 (Pugh, Dylan)
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Pineapple Gall Adelgid
The Pineapple Gall Adelgid (Adelges abietis) is a type of conifer-feeding insect, similar to an aphid that forms pineapple-shaped plant galls on its host species, commonly Norway and Sitka Spruce. The galls are more noticeable than the insect. The mature gall is ellipsoidal with its length less than 1.5 times the width and usually about 15 to 20 mm in length. The spruce needles on the gall are shorter than normal. The gall is only slightly paler green than a normal shoot. The slits to gall chambers are often orange-red or deep pink before opening. There are often several galls together at the base of adjacent shoots, and plant growth often continues beyond gall.