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The Norway Spruce (Picea abies) is a large evergreen tree growing to 35-55 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 1-1.5 m. It grows throughout Northern Europe, Russia, and in the mountains of Central Europe, southwest to the western end of the Alps, and southeast to the extreme north of Greece. The northern limit is in the arctic, just north of 70°N in Norway. Its eastern limit in Russia is hard to define, due to extensive hybridisation and intergradation with the Siberian Spruce (Picea obovata), but is usually given as the Ural Mountains. However, trees showing some Siberian Spruce characters extend as far west as much of northern Finland, with a few records in northern Norway. The hybrid is known as Picea x fennica.
Norway Spruce shoots are orange-brown and glabrous (hairless). The leaves are needle-like, 12-24 mm long, quadrangular in cross-section (not flattened), and dark green on all four sides. The cones are 9-17 cm long (the longest of any spruce), and have triangular-pointed scale tips. They are green or reddish, maturing brown 5-7 months after pollination.
Some botanists treat Siberian Spruce as a subspecies of Norway Spruce, though in their typical forms, they are very distinct, the Siberian Spruce having cones only 5-10 cm long, with smoothly rounded scales, and pubescent (hairy) shoots.
Another spruce with smoothly rounded cone scales and hairy shoots occurs rarely in the central Alps in eastern Switzerland. It is also distinct in having thicker, blue-green leaves. Many texts treat this as a variant of Norway Spruce, but it is as distinct as many other spruces, and appears to be more closely related to Siberian Spruce, Schrenk's Spruce (P. schrenkiana) from central Asia and Morinda Spruce (P. smithiana) in the Himalaya. Treated as a distinct species, it takes the name Alpine Spruce (Picea alpestris). As with Siberian Spruce, it hybridises extensively with Norway Spruce; pure specimens are rare.
Outside of its native range, Norway Spruce is one of the most widely planted spruces, both in forestry for timber production, and as an ornamental tree in gardens. It is naturalised in some parts of North America, though not so extensively as to be considered an invasive weed tree.
Norway Spruce is widely used as a Christmas tree.
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