Picea asperata Seeds | Dragon Spruce
LATIN NAME: Picea asperata
COMMON NAME: Dragon Spruce, Chinese Spruce
Plant Profile
Two details separate a spruce from the firs and pines it grows beside. Cut a needle across and it is square, or nearly so, rather than flat; look at a cone and it hangs from the branch instead of standing upright on top of the shoot. Dragon spruce shows both. Its needles are stiff and bluish-green, set on small pegs that leave the twig rough when they fall, and its cones are cylindrical, pale brown and pendent, maturing in a single season and dropping whole rather than shattering on the tree. An upright cone that disintegrates where it grows means fir; a cone on the ground, intact, means spruce.
The rough peg-like leaf bases, the thick cuticle and the resin canals that run through the needle are adaptations to frost and to desiccation by wind at altitude. The same features make the needles unpalatable to most browsing mammals, though deer will take the current season’s growth when other food is scarce.
The species was described by Masters in the nineteenth century and has since been split into varieties distinguished by cone size, needle colour and the hairiness of the young shoots. Not every author accepts the same set, and nursery material is often sold simply as the species. In the garden the most obvious variation is in needle colour, with blue-grey and greener forms side by side, so it is worth selecting a plant in person rather than from a list.
Science & Biotechnology
Spruce is the workhorse of conifer biotechnology. Somatic embryogenesis, in which a single cell from an immature embryo is coaxed into forming an embryo of its own in culture, was worked out in this genus, and the method is now used for clonal propagation and for cryopreservation of valuable lines. The appeal is that a conifer cannot be cloned from a cutting the way a willow can. A cell line held in liquid nitrogen keeps its juvenile character and can be bulked up on demand.
Spruce wood and bark carry stilbenes, the same family of phenolics that includes resveratrol. Piceid, the glucoside of resveratrol, takes its name from the genus, and piceatannol is its better-known relative in this tissue; both are studied for antioxidant behaviour and for the way they respond to fungal attack in the living tree. The resin adds another line of chemistry, dominated by diterpene resin acids such as abietic and pimaric acid, and the needle oil is rich in bornyl acetate and camphene.
Uses & Benefits
Dragon spruce is one of the principal timber and shelter species of the upper watersheds of western China. It has been planted extensively in the reforestation and slope-stabilisation programmes that followed the logging of the natural stands, and it holds soil on steep ground. Its value there is as much hydrological as commercial: the root plate binds colluvium, the canopy breaks the force of rain, and the litter layer slows runoff into the tributaries of the great rivers below.
Growing from Seed
Most spruces keep their stomata on one or two faces of the needle, leaving the exposed side smooth and glossy. Dragon spruce is different: the stomatal bands run along all four faces, which gives the foliage a dull, grey-white bloom and makes the tree easy to pick out in a mixed stand. The bark is grey-brown and scaly, the crown narrow and tapering, and old trees in a sheltered valley can lift their crowns well above head height. In cultivation the same species takes a slower, denser form on poorer ground.
Move the seedlings on once the second set of true needles has opened. Lift each one with a dibber under the root and set it into a deep pot, because the taproot resents being shortened. Water in and keep the pots in light shade for a while before moving them into full sun.
Young spruce need wind protection more than warmth. Set a screen on the windward side, mulch around the pot or the planting station to keep the roots from freezing through, and water well before the ground closes. Once established, an annual mulch of compost is enough feeding; the main pests are aphids on the soft new growth and the small mammals that nibble the bark at the base of young trees.
Our Take
Dragon spruce is a long-term plant, so choose the site as carefully as you choose the seed and give the roots room from the start. Growers used to the Western spruces will find the comparisons useful: Norway spruce is the faster European timber tree, blue spruce is the ornamental with the bluest foliage, and Faber’s fir is the Chinese mountain conifer that grows beside the dragon spruce but stands its cones upright. On the same slopes, Chinese pine often takes the drier ground below the spruce belt.
Related Reading
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