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Alphabetical List of Plants & Trees
Here's a recipe for Spruce beer (untested)- one part resin of spruce and 76 parts water. Boil, strain, and allow to cool. Add 96 parts warm water, 7 parts molasses and 1 part yeast. Allow to ferment and bottle strongly while fermenting.
The White Spruce
Picea GlaucaHabitat:
White spruce is a native American evergreen tree that lives in the cold, northern forests. It is one of seven species of spruce that are native to North America, growing from Newfoundland to Alaska and northeast North America.Description:
This tree is a medium-sized conifer (produces cones) with a long, straight trunk, and narrow crown. The cones ripen around August or September. It has bluish-green needles that are stiff and four-sided and it can grow to about 80 feet.The adult bark is thin and grayish brown. It has shallow roots. White Spruce will grow in a wide variety of soils but it needs a well-drained mineral soil. It grows poorly where there is high water.
The Life of A White Spruce
Many birds and animals feed on white spruce seeds. They are the main food of red squirrels. The seeds are nutritious and a good energy source.
Native Uses
Spruce was used to cure Scurvy, a fatal disease cause by a lack of Vitamin C. Scurvy was common among the early Europeans, who were spending time at sea without fruit and vegetables. Many died. It was native people that cured the immigrant survivors. They would boil the bark and leaves of the spruce and drink the broth. The roots were also used to make watape. Watape is a name given to the divided roots of the spruce, which are woven to form containers to cook in, or to make buckets, baskets, snow shoes and pipe stems. Spruce baskets are made from the bark peeled in the spring, when it is flexible.
Spruce is also brewed as beer, not only as a cure for scurvy, but as a domestic beer. Besides scurvy, spruce is used to cure other illness.
The
Dene use it for snow blindness and soreness from wounds. The upper shoots are cut off and the sapling split in two and left by the fireside. After the resin had been heated out, the eye is gently coated.The
Huron apply a dressing of boiled spruce to burns.The
Penobscot use spruce resin as a dressing for boils and abscesses, and chewed spruce gum.The
Montagnais use steeped twigs of white spruce as a tonic.The
Chippewa make a decoction from the twigs of white spruce, the moss of ground-pine and chips cut from the heart of ironwood to make to a steam bath for stiff joints in rheumatism. Spruce gum is considered best for use in caulking canoes and pails made from birch bark. It is prepared by boiling the gum in a meshed bag that strains the bits of wood and bark, allowing the gum to pass into the water. It is then skimmed from the surface and stored until a convenient time when it is mixed with charcoal from cedar. The roots are used for sewing canoes.The
Menomini use the inner bark from white spruce to make a tea which is a tonic. The half cooked, beaten, inner bark is used as a dressing placed on a cloth and applied to a wound, cut or swelling.The
Ojibwe people use smoked white spruce leaves as an inhalant and a cleanser.The
Potawatomi make dressings from the inner bark to apply to infection.The
Tete de Boule use the roots for sewing canoes, baskets and snow shoes. The gum of the spruce, like the pine, is applied to sores.The
Micmac and Malecite use white spruce for stomach trouble, scabs and sores, and as a salve for cuts.
Also called:
Canadian spruce, western white spruce, Alberta spruce, Black Hills spruce, skunk spruce, cat spruce, Alberta white spruce
Red squirrels can survive the winter on a diet consisting entirely of white spruce seeds. In fact, they prefer white spruce seed over black spruce seed. They are so dependent on the seeds that their population growth is directly related to the period of good crops of seed.
Snowshoe hares feed heavily on white spruce. The needles, bark, and twigs make up a large part of the hare's winter diet. Chickadees, nuthatches, crossbills, and pine siskin pry out seeds from open cones and eat seeds off the ground. Spruce grouse feed completely on spruce needles during winter.
White spruce also provides a good cover for wildlife. It gives protection from strong winter winds to animals like caribou. Larger animals, like moose, elk, and deer do not like to eat white spruce.
Colorado Blue Spruce available at LandscapeUSA
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