Picea rubens
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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 and eastern Tennessee.<ref name=farjon>Farjon, A. (1990). Pinaceae. Drawings and Descriptions of the Genera. Koeltz Scientific Books Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="fna">Template:EFloras</ref><ref name=gd>Template:Gymnosperm Database</ref> This species is also known as yellow spruce, West Virginia spruce, eastern spruce, and he-balsam.<ref>Template:Silvics</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Red spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia.<ref name="fna" />
DescriptionEdit
Red spruce is a perennial,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> shade-tolerant, late successional<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> coniferous tree that under optimal conditions grows to Template:Convert tall with a trunk diameter of about Template:Convert, though exceptional specimens can reach Template:Convert tall and Template:Convert in diameter. It has a narrow conical crown. The leaves are needle-like, yellow-green, Template:Convert 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The cones are cylindrical, Template:Convert long, with a glossy red-brown color and stiff scales. The cones hang down from branches.<ref name=farjon /><ref name=fna /><ref name=gd /><ref name=afc>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HabitatEdit
Red spruce grows at a slow to moderate rate, lives for 250 to 450+ years, and is very shade-tolerant when young.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> 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 in West Virginia can be seen at Gaudineer Scenic Area, Canaan Valley, Roaring Plains West Wilderness, Dolly Sods Wilderness, and Spruce Mountain, all sites of former extensive red spruce forest.
Related speciesEdit
It is closely related to black spruce, and hybrids between the two are frequent where their ranges meet.<ref name=farjon /><ref name=fna /><ref name=gd /> Genetic data suggests that the red spruce peripatrically speciated from the black spruce during glaciation in the Pleistocene.<ref name="Jaramillo-Correa and Bousquet">Template:Citation</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>
UsesEdit
Red spruce is used for Christmas trees and is an important wood used in making paper pulp. It is also an excellent tonewood and is used in many higher-end acoustic guitars and violins, as well as sound boards. The sap can be used to make spruce gum.<ref name=afc /> Leafy red spruce twigs are boiled with sugar and flavoring to make spruce beer<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> or spruce pudding. It can be used as construction lumber and is good for millwork and for crates.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web
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Damaging factorsEdit
Like most trees, red spruce is subject to insect parasitism. Their insect enemy is the spruce budworm, although it is a bigger problem for white spruce and balsam fir.<ref>Template:EOL</ref> Other issues that have been damaging red spruce have included the increase in acid rain and current climate change.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
One of the consequences of acid rain deposition is the decrease of soil exchangeable calcium and increase of aluminum. This is because acid precipitation disrupts cation and nutrition cycling in forest ecosystems. Components of acid rain such as H+, NO3−, and SO42- limit the uptake of calcium by trees and can increase aluminum availability.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Calcium concentration is important for red spruce for physiological processes such as dark respiration and cold tolerance, as well as disease resistance, signal transduction, membrane and cell wall synthesis and function, and regulation of stomata. Conversely, dissolved aluminum can be toxic or can interfere with root uptake of calcium and other nutrients. At the ecosystem and community levels, Calcium availability is associated with community composition, mature tree growth, and ecosystem productivity. One study testing the effects of added aluminum to soil, found that P. rubens mortality rate increased under these conditions.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
During the 1980s, increased acid deposition contributed to a loss of high-elevation red spruce trees caused by leached calcium and thus decreased freezing tolerance.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> Additionally, the structure of the spruce needle enhances the capture of water and particles, which has been shown to add to soil acidification, nutrient leaching, and forest decline.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, more recently, reductions in acid deposition have contributed to red spruce resurgence in some mountain areas in the northeastern United States. This increase in red spruce growth has been associated with an increase in rainfall pH, which reduces bulk acidic deposition. This suggests that policies aiming to reduce atmospheric pollution in this area have been effective, although other species sensitive to soil acidification, such as sugar maple, are still continuing to decline.<ref name=":0" />
ConservationEdit
The red spruce has low genetic diversity as well as a narrow ecological niche, meaning the tree is easily susceptible to changes within its environment.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> seeks to unite diverse partners with the goal of restoring historic red spruce ecosystems across the high-elevation landscapes of central Appalachians. The partners that make up this diverse group are Appalachian Mountain Joint Venture, Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative, Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Natural Resources Conservation Service, The Mountain Institute, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, West Virginia Division of Forestry, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, West Virginia State Parks, and West Virginia University.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Prior to the late 19th century, Template:Convert of red spruce were in West Virginia. In the late 19th and early 20th century, a vast amount of logging began in the state, and the number of red spruce dwindled to Template:Convert. Silviculture is being used to help restore the population of the lost red spruce.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Significant efforts have been made to increase the growth of red spruce trees in western North Carolina, most notably by Molly Tartt on behalf of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Tartt embarked on a mission to find the lost red spruce forest that had been planted by the DAR as a memorial to the lives lost during the American Revolution. The forest, consisting of 50,000 trees was dedicated in 1940 and had until recently been forgotten until Tartt located and identified the forest near Devil's Courthouse.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>