There is a species of spruce tree, the Norway spruce, that has
been so widely planted in our country that, even though it is not
native of the continent, more people recognize and know this tree
than one of our native spruces such as the white or black.
Travel throughout Europe and you will see vast stands of these
beautiful trees doing very well from Scandinavia southward into
the Balkans and the Alps. Go to the Italian Tyrol in the Alpine
foothills to see stately stands of these straight towering spruces.
Perhaps it was the settling of the Great Plains in our
country, where strong winds became a problem to the farmers, that
led to the planting of so many thousands of fast-growing Norway
spruces producing dense windbreaks or shelter belts to reduce
soil erosion. Surely these widespread stands helped develop a
wider interest in these handsome trees.
We have found during our travels in this country that many
rural cemeteries grace the grounds with several Norway spruces.
Their tall, straight, symmetrical, dark green, pyramidal-shaped
crowns, like church steeples pointing toward heaven, are
perfectly suited for landscaping these sacred locations.
Europeans find the Norway spruce to be their tallest native
tree, sometimes attaining the height of 215 feet and a trunk
diameter of five feet. Seldom do they grow taller in the U.S.
than around 60-70 feet with a trunk diameter of two feet. They
grow best at elevations of 3,300 –7,500 feet where the climate is
cool and humid and where the soil is deep, rich and moist. Our
tallest native spruce is the Sitka spruce of the West.
Several characteristics make Norway spruce trees easy to
identify. Their branches droop down, then curve gracefully up
toward the tips. The large downward-hanging cones of this tree
can be four to seven inches long, the largest of any species of
spruce tree in the world. They are considerably larger than
those of the three species native to northeastern U.S., the red,
black and white. As an interpretive naturalist I always refer to
the beautiful cones of the Norway spruce as the "cuckoo
clock cones."
The patterning of the cuckoo clock weights after the cones of
the Norway spruce supposedly dates back several centuries to the
cuckoo clock makers of the Black Forest of Europe. The dark
somber spruces that predominated at that time there, very likely
giving the forest its "Black" name, were the Norway
spruces, Picea Abies, (PIE-see-a A-bee-eez).
Picea, from "pix" in Latin refers to pith or
resin produced in these and other similar trees. Abies
takes one back to when the tree was incorrectly classified
in the Abies genus with other fir trees.
Examine a cone of this spruce tree and you will easily see
that its wedge-shaped, ragged scales are arranged so as to form
two different spirals going in opposite directions for the entire
length of the cone. It was an Italian mathematician, Leonardo
Fibonacci, who elaborated on this design. Fibonacci
(fib-o-NAH-chee), who lived from 1170 to 1230, apparently was
fascinated by the spirals of nature. These could be seen in the
petals of a flower, the seed arrangement on a sunflower head,
scales of an evergreen cone, thorns on a rose brush, as well as
the leaves of many garden vegetables.
The mathematical progression produced what is now referred to
as the Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89,
144 and so on. Notice that each number is the sum of the two
proceeding numbers.
If a fraction is made using successive numbers, for example
13/21 or 21/34, the denominator always turns out to be 1.618
times that of the numerator. The Golden Ratio, 1.618, referred
to as phi, is in honor of Phidias, the famous ancient
Greek sculptor. The long side of the Parthenon in Greece is
1.618 times the shorter side!
The leathery scales of the Norway spruce, like the sunflower
seeds in a single head, are arranged in two distinct spirals, one
clockwise and the other counterclockwise. Using a piece of
string, fasten it at the top of the cone and follow the edges of
the shallow spiral first. You should be able to encircle the
cone about four or five times. Invariably there will be five
rows of scales within each complete spiral.
Following the more steeply-pitched spiral you should discover
there to be eight rows of scales between each complete spiral.
These two sets of spirals are said to have a 5/8 arrangement.
Look back at the Fibonacci series to see that five and eight are
indeed consecutive numbers in that symmetrical and uniform ratio!
The Norway spruce is by far the most commonly-used tree in
England and other parts of Europe for the Christmas season.
However, one shortcoming of the practice of bringing any of the
spruces indoors in winter is that, unless the tree is watered
very regularly, its needles tend to fall quickly.
Even though we always use a live tree indoors at Christmas
time, most often a balsam fir, we prefer to see the Norway
spruces firmly growing in the ground, liberally decorated now
with many cones, and pointing majestically upwards toward their
zenith in the great outdoors.
Beautiful five-inch cones gently weigh down the boughs of the Norway spruce.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 12/13/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
