Norway spruce

PICAB

Picea abies is widespread and dominant in Boreal conifer forests of N and NE Europe, where it replaces Pinus sylvestris on wetter sites because Picea abies can avoid the water table with a very shallow root system. Occurs from sea level up to 2,000 m. The natural distribution shows continental tendencies but in the western mountains of Central Europe an ecotype has evolved that is adapted to sub-Atlantic weather conditions with heavy 'wet' snowfall in early winter.

Picea abies grows throughout Europe from Norway in the northwest and Poland eastward, and also in the mountains of central Europe, southwest to the western end of the Alps, and southeast in the Carpathians and Balkans 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, but is usually given as the Ural Mountains.