2/17/09 TREES OF WINTER, AND SIGNS OF SPRING

Tuesday, 8:30 AM. 27 degrees, wind SW, calm. The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts snow.
The white spruce, Picea glauca, is the most prominent spruce in the Northland landscape. A spruce growing in the wild in our region will almost always be white spruce. The only other native spruce is the black spruce, Picea mariana, a much smaller tree, relegated almost exclusively to bogs, stream banks and other wet habitats. White spruce is an extremely hardy tree of the far Northern Coniferous Forests, ranging throughout the upper Great Lakees States and Canada to the tundra, the needles green to blue-green in color. Black spruce has a similar geographic range, its needles are much shorter and bluish green.
The blue spruce, discussed earlier, and the Norway spruce, Picea abies, are often found in landscaped areas and occasionally in plantations. The Norway spruce is usually easily distinguished from other spruces by its very pendulous, almost weeping branches and dark green needles. Another important identification characteristic of the spruces are the cones, not discussed here.
There are several sure if subtle signs of the approach of spring which can easily be detected now, if one knows how to look. The young branches of willows are beginning to show a lot of color, from shades of yellow to orange. Except for one or two species, for instance the weeping willow (a Eurasian introduction), the willows are very difficult to identify and I will not try to distinguish them, and certainly not in winter. But they are very obvious now. Less obvious is the young growth of paper birch trees, which is becoming quite reddish. Also very subtle but definite are the swelling buds of poplar trees, which in the right light can turn whole hillsides sort of a soft smoky gray. Less obvious from a distance are the swelling maple buds. I cannot catch these subtle changes with a camera, except for the willows pictured here. I can only tell you they are there. I find I have to view a lot of the more subtle colors and shades in nature with eyes half shut, sort of with a squint, to filter out some of the scattered light. In any case, now is the time to start looking for signs of incipient spring.