Red spruce

Picea rubens, commonly known as red spruce, is a species of spruce native to eastern North America. This tree ranges from Newfoundland westward through Pennsylvania and on to Minnesota. It is found in White Mountains of New England as high as 5000 feet and in the Adirondacks and Alleghany Mountains to about 4000 feet.

The tree is a member of the family Pinaceae, the largest family of conifers. Like the other spruce species, Picea ribens has long strong trunks with a scaly bark, and dense narrow branches that can extend to the ground in open-grown trees.

Spruce trees are considered very hardy. They are evergreen trees, often conical. The timber of the red spruce is quite strong. The tree sometimes attains a height of about 100 feet (30 meters).

The tree ranges along the Alleghany Mountains as far south as Georgia. Some of the better timber from this tree is used for piano sounding boards, but the majority is used for pulp wood, for sheathing and flooring in building construction.

Red spruce is an important, but is declining component of eastern North American forests and it is a species characteristic of mature Acadian forests. Atmospheric pollution, acid deposition and deforestation are the principle causes of its decline throughout it arrange.

Late-successional species, including red spruce have decline in abundance and age in Prince Edward Island as a result of selective forest exploitation and clearing for agriculture.
Red spruce