Concept

Picea rubens

Picea rubens, commonly known as red spruce, is a species of spruce native to eastern North America, ranging from eastern Quebec and Nova Scotia, west to the Adirondack Mountains and south through New England along the Appalachians to western North Carolina. This species is also known as yellow spruce, West Virginia spruce, eastern spruce, and he-balsam. Red spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia. Red spruce is a perennial, shade-tolerant, late successional coniferous tree that under optimal conditions grows to tall with a trunk diameter of about , though exceptional specimens can reach tall and in diameter. It has a narrow conical crown. The leaves are needle-like, yellow-green, long, four-sided, curved, with a sharp point, and extend from all sides of the twig. The bark is gray-brown on the surface and red-brown on the inside, thin, and scaly. The wood is light, soft, has narrow rings, and has a slight red tinge. The cones are cylindrical, long, with a glossy red-brown color and stiff scales. The cones hang down from branches. Red spruce grows at a slow to moderate rate, lives for 250 to 450+ years, and is very shade-tolerant when young. It is often found in pure stands or forests mixed with eastern white pine, balsam fir, or black spruce. Along with Fraser fir, red spruce is one of two primary tree types in the southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest, a distinct ecosystem found only in the highest elevations of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Its habitat is moist but well-drained sandy loam, often at high altitudes. Red spruce can be easily damaged by windthrow and acid rain. Notable red spruce forests can be seen at Gaudineer Scenic Area, a virgin red spruce forest located in West Virginia, the Canaan Valley, Roaring Plains West Wilderness, Dolly Sods Wilderness, Spruce Mountain and Spruce Knob all also in West Virginia and all sites of former extensive red spruce forest. Some areas of this forest, particularly in Roaring Plains West Wilderness, Dolly Sods Wilderness as well as areas of Spruce Mountain are making a rather substantial recovery.

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Related concepts (11)
Picea glauca
Picea glauca, the white spruce, is a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in North America. Picea glauca is native from central Alaska all through the east, across western and southern/central Canada to the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, and south to Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Upstate New York and Vermont, along with the mountainous and immediate coastal portions of New Hampshire and Maine, where temperatures are just barely cool and moist enough to support it.
Quebec
Quebec (k(w)ɪˈbɛk ; kwəˈbɛk ; Québec kebɛk) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the largest province by area and the second-largest by population. Much of the population of Quebec lives in urban areas along the St. Lawrence River, between its most populous city, Montreal, and the provincial capital, Quebec City. The province is the home of the Québécois nation.
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