Spruce Forests

Spruce Forests 

evergreen forests in which spruces predominate. They are found in Europe, Asia, and North America, both as pure spruce forests and in combination with other coniferous and deciduous varieties.

In the USSR spruce forests cover areas exceeding 80 million hectares. In the European part of the Soviet Union, they are composed of Norway spruce, which is also found in many regions of Western Europe. Spruce forests in the Caucasus are composed of oriental spruce; in the western Urals, Urals, and Siberia of Siberian spruce; in the Far East of Yeddo, Korean, and Sitka spruce; and in Middle Asia of the Schrenk spruce.

The fundamental variant in the Taiga zone is the whortle-berry-spruce forest, with well-developed whortleberry ground cover. Less common is the red bilberry-spruce forest, in which red bilberry predominates in the ground cover, usually in drier locations. Another common type is the spruce-moss forest, with extensive ground cover of glistening mosses. On richer loams and sandy loams spruce-sorrel types appear, in which the ground cover contains oxalis, mayflower, goutweed, and ferns. The most productive types of spruce are found in the subzone of mixed forests and in the southern Taiga, with lindens, oaks, and filberts. In damp and moist terrain spruce forests grow with ground covers of grass, grass and peat moss, long moss, or pure peat moss.

REFERENCE

Shimaniuk, A. P. Biologiia drevesnykh i kustarnikovykh porod SSSR, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1964. Pages 86–101.

A. P. SHIMANIUK