Picea abies, Picea excelsa, SE: Gran, DE: Fichte,
NL: Fijnspar, UK: Norway Spruce

Scientific name:		Picea abies (L.) H.Karst.
Synonym name:		Picea excelsa (Lam.) Link
Swedish name:		Gran, rödgran, vanlig gran
German name:		Fichte
Nederlandse naam:		Fijnspar
English name:		Norway Spruce
Plant Family:		Pinaceae, Pine family, Tallväxter

Life form:		Evergreen coniferous tree
Stems:		Trunk thick gray scales with age; mature branches have a downswept angle with upturned ends, with pendulous branchlets (skirts) hanging from the main branches.
Leaves:		Dark green needle-like, 12-24 mm long, quadrangular in cross-section(shoots are orange-brown and glabrous); needles are angled forward towards the end of the stem
Flowers:		Monoecious, with the staminate flowers in the leaf axils and pistillate flowers at the termini of stems, both being pink-purple in color and concentrated in the crowns of mature trees
Flowering Period:		May, June
Fruits:		Cones 9-17 cm long, in the upper one-third of mature trees at the branch tips; light green with a purplish cast when immature, becoming tan-brown with maturity and slowly abscising.
Habitat:		Woods

Derivation of the botanical name: Picea, Latin for "pine". abies Latin for "fir". Silver fir, fir tree. The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy. The standard author abbreviation H. Karst is used to indicate Gustav Karl Wilhelm Hermann Karsten (1817 – 1908), a German botanist and geologist. The standard author abbreviation Lam. is used to indicate Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 – 1829), a French botanist. The standard author abbreviation Link is used to indicate Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link (1767 – 1851), a German naturalist and botanist. The crown has a narrow conical shape and the main trunk is straight, the upper branches are upward and the lower branches are often hanging. Used as a Christmas tree and in forestry for timber and paper production.