Himalayan spruce

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Himalayan spruce
Northern spruce (Picea smithiana)

Northern spruce ( Picea smithiana )

Systematics
Class : Coniferopsida
Order : Conifers (Coniferales)
Family : Pine family (Pinaceae)
Subfamily : Piceoideae
Genre : Spruce trees ( Picea )
Type : Himalayan spruce
Scientific name
Picea smithiana
( Wall. ) Boiss.

The Himalayan spruce ( Picea smithiana ), also called Morinda spruce , is a species of the spruce genus ( Picea ) in the pine family (Pinaceae).

description

Needles
bark
Branch with cones

The Himalayan spruce is an evergreen tree that can reach heights of up to 60 meters. The chest height diameter can be up to 2 meters. The dull brown bark breaks into large round plates. The crown is a slender spindle with horizontal branches that curve upwards at the ends. The crown is often forked. The branches have long, dull brown or dull gray twigs .

The winter buds are shiny purple-brown, conical or egg-shaped and about 8 mm long. The needle leaves are on the hanging branches between 2.5 and 5.5 inches long and between 1.3 and 1.8 millimeters wide. They are thin, arched forward, and not piercing. The color is glossy dark green, the tip sharply pointed, they have a round cross-section. There are 2 to 5 longitudinal grooves on each side.

The Himalayan spruce is single-sexed ( monoecious ). The male flowers are egg-shaped and about 4 cm long. They dust in June. The cones are initially green and then turn brown. They are 7 to 18 inches long and 3 to 5 inches thick. They are clearly drooping and cylindrical, tapering towards both ends. The numerous scales are wide, inverted ovoid and about 3 inches long and 2.4 inches wide. They are very close together and have smooth, curved tips. The seeds measure about 5 millimeters in diameter. They are dark brown and winged 1 to 1.5 inches long.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 24.

distribution

The Himalayan spruce grows on Lithosol , a poorly developed soil made of solid rock (raw rock, rubble or skeletal soils) at altitudes between 2300 and 3600 meters.

It is native to Afghanistan , northern India , Nepal , Kashmir , Pakistan, and the Tibet Autonomous Region . In England it is now and then planted in larger gardens, in Central Europe , on the other hand, apart from perhaps the warmest locations, it is not sufficiently hardy .

Systematics and taxonomy

Picea smithiana ( Wall. ) Boiss. belongs in the genus Picea in section Picea , subsection Picea and series Smithianae . She has the basionym Pinus smithiana Wall. and the synonyms Abies smithiana (Wall.) Lindl. , Pinus khutrow Royle ex Turra and Picea morinda Link .

literature

  • Jost Fitschen : Woody flora . 8th edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1987, ISBN 978-3-494-01151-6 , p. 2/14 .
  • Liguo Fu, Nan Li, Thomas S. Elias, Robert R. Mill: Picea smithiana . In: Wu Zhengyi, Peter H. Raven (Ed.): Flora of China . tape 4 . Science Press, Beijing 1999, ISBN 978-0-915279-70-8 , pp. 29 (English, online [accessed November 28, 2008]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tropicos. [1]
  2. ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Picea. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved April 15, 2019.

Web links

Commons : Himalayan spruce ( Picea smithiana )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files