Minnesota Native Wildflowers, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Norway Spruce	Picea abies (L.) Karst.	Pine (Pinaceae)	Upland	All Year
Other names and notes	Norway Spruce is an upland evergreen tree, growing 60 to 90 feet high with a straight trunk and spreading branches. The branchlets of the mature trees noticeably hang downward. Twigs are mostly hairless and have an orangish cast and the needles are rectangular in cross-section, shiny dark green, from 1/2 to 1" long, sharp pointed and spread from all sides of the twig on very short stalks . Cones are cylindrical, hang downward and are 4 to 6" long. The cone scales are numerous, thin and irregularly toothed. Cones open the year after maturing and are the largest cones of the spruces. There are varieties that have been developed(at one time, 133 were listed) that change some of the characteristics, such as having yellowish-green needles or a dwarf habit.


Above left: Typical pyramidal shape of the tree. Center: Typical pendant branchlets of mature trees. Right: Cones hang down - longest cones of the spruces.
Below left: Orangish color of the twig, rectangular shape of needles. Right: Note the irregular teeth of the cone scales.


Below: The stand of Norway Spruce in the Upland Garden near the east maintenance gate.

Notes: The traditional Christmas tree of Britain and Norther Europe, Norway Spruce is an introduced species from northern Europe that is found in the Northeastern States of the U.S. as far west as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois and also in Canada from Ontario eastward. In Minnesota the only reported counties having a population are Fillmore, Anoka, and Lake of the Woods. That is probably old data as it can be found in a number of places in Hennepin County besides the Garden. Gardener Cary George believed the trees in the Upland Garden were planted by Martha Crone in the late 1940s in honor of Theodore Wirth whose desire was to have all of Wirth Park contain trees familiar to his native Switzerland. Martha Crone's Garden Log however contains no note of her planting them in any year after the upland was added to the wildflower garden in 1944; nor she does not list them on her 1951 Garden Census although the trees are at least that old. This tall stand is at the east end of the Upland Garden near the east maintenance gate.

Return to -- Site Plan/Archive --or-- List of Common Plant Names -- or -- List of Scientific Names -- or --Home Page

References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

021612