Spruce in the context of Conifer

Lapland is the largest and northernmost region of Finland. The 21 municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the Finnish region of North Ostrobothnia in the south. It also borders the Gulf of Bothnia, Norrbotten County in Sweden, Finnmark County and Troms County in Norway, and Murmansk Oblast and the Republic of Karelia in Russia. The topography of Lapland varies from vast mires and forests in the south to fells in the north. The Arctic Circle crosses Lapland, so polar phenomena such as the midnight sun and polar night can be viewed in this region.

Lapland's cold and wintry climate, coupled with its relative abundance of conifer trees such as pines and spruces, means that it has become associated with Christmas in some countries, most notably the United Kingdom, and holidays to Lapland are common towards the end of the year. However, the Lapland region has developed its infrastructure for year-round tourism. For example, in 2019, tourism during the snow-free period grew more than in the winter season. In recent years, Lapland has also become a major tourist destination for celebrities as well as royalty.

A soundboard (or sounding board) is the surface of a string instrument that the strings vibrate against, usually via some sort of bridge. Depending on the instrument, it is also called a top, top plate, resonator, table, sound-table, or belly. It is usually made of a softwood, often spruce.

Pianos, guitars, banjos, and many other stringed instruments incorporate soundboards. The resonant properties of the soundboard and the interior of the instrument greatly increase the loudness of the vibrating strings. "The sound board is probably the most important element of a guitar in terms of its influence on the quality of the instrument's tone [timbre]."

The Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three varieties: coast Douglas-fir (P. menziesii var. menziesii), Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir (P. menziesii var. glauca) and Mexican Douglas-fir (P. menziesii var. lindleyana).

Despite its common names, it is not a true fir (genus Abies), spruce (genus Picea), or pine (genus Pinus). It is also not a hemlock (genus Tsuga); the genus name Pseudotsuga means "false hemlock".

Taiga or tayga (/ˈtaɪɡə/ TY-gə; Russian: тайга́, IPA: [tɐjˈɡa]), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North America, it covers most of inland Canada, Alaska, and parts of the northern contiguous United States. In Eurasia, it covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Russia from Karelia in the west to the Pacific Ocean (including much of Siberia), much of Norway and Estonia, some of the Scottish Highlands, some lowland/coastal areas of Iceland, and areas of northern Kazakhstan, northern Mongolia, and northern Japan (on the island of Hokkaido).

The principal tree species, depending on the length of the growing season and summer temperatures, vary across the world. The taiga of North America is mostly spruce; Scandinavian and Finnish taiga consists of a mix of spruce, pines and birch; Russian taiga has spruces, pines and larches depending on the region; and the Eastern Siberian taiga is a vast larch forest.

Spruce beer is a beverage flavored with the buds, needles, or essence of spruce trees. Spruce beer can refer to either alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages.

A number of flavors are associated with spruce-flavored beverages, ranging from floral, citrus, and fruity, to cola-like flavors to resinous and piney. This diversity in flavor likely comes from the choice of spruce species, the season in which the spruce ingredients are harvested, and the manner of preparation.

Anemophily or wind pollination is a form of pollination whereby pollen is distributed by wind. Almost all gymnosperms are anemophilous, as are many plants in the order Poales, including grasses, sedges, and rushes. Other common anemophilous plants are oaks, pecans, pistachios, sweet chestnuts, alders, hops, and members of the family Juglandaceae (hickory or walnut family). Approximately 12% of plants across the globe are pollinated by anemophily, including cereal crops like rice and corn and other prominent crop plants like wheat, rye, barley, and oats. In addition, many pines, spruces, and firs are wind-pollinated.

Picea glauca, the white spruce, is a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in Canada and United States, North America.

Picea glauca is native from central Alaska all through the east, across western and southern/central Canada to the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario and south to Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Upstate New York and Vermont, along with the mountainous and immediate coastal portions of New Hampshire and Maine, where temperatures are just barely cool and moist enough to support it. There is also an isolated population in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. It is also known as Canadian spruce, skunk spruce, cat spruce, Black Hills spruce, western white spruce, Alberta white spruce, and Porsild spruce.

The Pinaceae, or pine family, are conifer trees or shrubs, including many of the well-known conifers of commercial importance such as cedars, firs, hemlocks, larches, pines and spruces. The family is included in the order Pinales, formerly known as Coniferales. Pinaceae have distinctive cones with woody scales bearing typically two ovules, and are supported as monophyletic by both morphological trait and genetic analysis. They are the largest extant conifer family in species diversity, with between 220 and 250 species (depending on taxonomic opinion) in 11 genera, and the second-largest (after Cupressaceae) in geographical range, found in most of the Northern Hemisphere, with the majority of the species in temperate climates, but ranging from subarctic to tropical. The family often forms the dominant component of boreal, coastal, and montane forests. One species, Pinus merkusii, grows just south of the equator in Southeast Asia. Major centres of diversity are found in the mountains of southwest China, Mexico, central Japan, and California.

A pulvinus (pl. pulvini) may refer to a joint-like thickening at the base of a plant leaf or leaflet that facilitates growth-independent movement. Pulvinus is also a botanical term for the persistent peg-like bases of the leaves in the coniferous genera Picea and Tsuga. Pulvinar movement is common, for example, in members of the bean family Fabaceae (Leguminosae) and the prayer plant family Marantaceae.

Pulvini may be present at the base of the leaf stalk or on its other end (apex), where the leaf is attached, or in a compound leaf at the place where the leaflets are joined to its middle stem. They consist of a core of vascular tissue within a flexible, bulky cylinder of thin-walled parenchyma cells. A pulvinus is also sometimes called a geniculum (meaning a knee-like structure in Latin).

Elatobium abietinum, commonly known as the green spruce aphid, or spruce aphid is a species of aphid in the subfamily Aphidinae that feeds on spruce (Picea spp.), and occasionally fir (Abies spp.). It is native to northern, central and eastern Europe and has spread to western Europe, North America and elsewhere.

Choristoneura fumiferana, the eastern spruce budworm, is a species of moth of the family Tortricidae native to the eastern United States and Canada. The caterpillars feed on the needles of spruce and fir trees. Eastern spruce budworm populations can experience significant oscillations, with large outbreaks sometimes resulting in wide scale tree mortality. The first recorded outbreaks of the spruce budworm in the United States occurred in about 1807, and since 1909 there have been waves of budworm outbreaks throughout the eastern United States and Canada. In Canada, the major outbreaks occurred in periods circa 1910–20, c. 1940–50, and c. 1970–80, each of which impacted millions of hectares of forest. Longer-term tree-ring studies suggest that spruce budworm outbreaks have been recurring approximately every three decades since the 16th century, and paleoecological studies suggest the spruce budworm has been breaking out in eastern North America for thousands of years.

Budworm outbreaks can have significant economic impacts on the forestry industry. As a result, the eastern spruce budworm is considered one of the most destructive forest pests in North America, and various methods of control are utilized. However, the species is also ecologically important, and several bird species are specialised on feeding on budworms during the breeding season. Several theories exist to explain the cyclical budworm outbreaks.

Dendroctonus micans, the great spruce bark beetle, is a species of bark beetle native to the coniferous forests of Europe and Asia. The beetles attack economically important spruce species including Picea abies (Norway spruce) and Picea sitchensis (Sitka spruce). The adults burrow into the bark of the trees and lay eggs there. The larvae feed on the phloem under the bark; they can girdle the tree if present in large enough numbers.

The species is a serious pest of commercial forestry, and is an invasive species in many regions where it is not native, such as the United Kingdom, France, Turkey, Georgia, and North America. While its main host is spruce, it also attacks coniferous trees of other genera, including firs such as Abies sibirica (Siberian fir); pines such as Pinus sylvestris (Scots pine); the Douglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii, and the common larch, Larix decidua. Biological pest control has been applied using a natural predator, the beetle Rhizophagus grandis, in several countries.

Picea abies, the Norway spruce or European spruce, is a species of spruce native to Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.

It has branchlets that typically hang downwards, and the longest cones of any spruce, 9–17 cm long. It is very closely related to the Siberian spruce (Picea obovata), which replaces it east of the Ural Mountains, and with which it hybridises freely. The Norway spruce has a wide distribution for it being planted for its wood, and is the species used as the main Christmas tree in several countries around the world. It was the first gymnosperm to have its genome sequenced. The Latin specific epithet abies means "like Abies, Fir tree".