Christmas tree week: Norway spruce

This week I decided to write about trees that are used or maybe could be used as Christmas trees. I have already written about the eastern white pine. But there are other trees around Rensselaer that are grown for that purpose. In addition, winter is a good time to identify the conifers, while it is not such a good time to identify most non-conifers. We start with one of the most common of the conifers, the Norway spruce.

The Norway spruce is not native to Indiana. In fact, as the name suggests, it is not even native to the U.S., but it is widely planted both as a city tree and in forests. It is one of the most common evergreens in Rensselaer. There a number of very large trees, such as this one on the corner of College and Jackson.
Two things help identify this tree. One is the very large cones, which are three or four inches long. The other is the dropping branches on the older trees.