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Common
Name: Red Spruce, West Virginia
spruce, Eastern spruce, Yellow spruce, Spruce pine, He-balsam, Épicea Rouge du
Canada, North American red spruce – The word spruce is derived from Pruce,
the name of the Prussian state in Old French; spruce trees were exported from
Prussia to England in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Scientific
Name:
Picea rubens
- - The generic name is the Latin word for "pitch pine" from the
Greek pissa meaning pitch; Picea was the commonly used Latin name
for all pine, spruce and fir trees. Rubens
is the Latin word meaning red.
The red spruce is a member of the
coniferous, mostly evergreen Pine Family (Pinaceae) which includes the firs,
hemlocks and larches in addition to the pines and spruces. Spruce trees are
best distinguished by their needles, which are stiff, pointed and have a square
cross section that can be distinguished readily by rolling them between the
fingers. Fir trees, which closely
resemble spruce trees in profile and appearance, have softer, flat needles that
cannot be rolled. An additional difference is that spruce needles are attached
to the bark with a woody projection that is retained when the needle drops off;
fir trees lack this projection.
There are three spruce trees
indigenous to eastern North American: white, black and red. White spruce is
found in the north, and, as the largest of the three, it is the most important
commercial pulpwood tree species of Canada. Black spruce is found in the same geographic
regions as white spruce, and is generally considered one of the most widely
distributed conifers in North America. Red spruce is the southernmost and
predominates in some notable areas of West Virginia, including Canaan Valley
and the Dolly Sods Wilderness; the tallest mountain in the state is Spruce Knob
(4863 feet). Red spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia. The three
species are very difficult to tell apart unless they are side by side, although
the reddish-brown bark distinguishes the red spruce from the darker bark of the
black spruce and the gray bark of the white spruce. Hybrids of the three
species further confuse the identification as they are not infrequent in the
areas where their ranges overlap.
Spruce trees were widely used by Native
Americans without any particular distinction between the red, black or white as
their wood, resin, and needles have essentially the same properties. For
medicinal purposes, the pitch or resin was extracted and used as a poultice for
the treatment of rheumatic joints and as a vulnerary - to promote the healing
of wounds; for example the Huron Indians applied a spruce resin poultice over
burns. The resin was also used as a
salve for epidermal treatment, most notably as a palliative for cold-induced foot
sores. The Chippewa Indians applied the resin to the eyes as a treatment for
snow blindness. On the practical side,
spruce roots were peeled and split to use for lacing and the resin was used as
caulking for canoe joints and as waterproofing for strips of hide used for
binding.
From the ethnobotanical
perspective, however, the most important Native American uses of the spruce
tree were the chewing of the resin as gum and the decocting of the boughs and
needles as ingredients for a beverage. Chewing spruce tree resin was a practice
that was adopted and adapted by the colonists who mixed it with beeswax to
improve its masticatory consistency. The American chewing gum industry began in
1848 when John Curtis concocted “State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum” and sold it to
local merchants in Portland, Maine. The predominance of spruce gum was
evanescent, however, as Curtis shifted production to flavored paraffin gums in
1850. The use of chicle from the sapodilla tree became the primary component of
chewing gum in 1869, a practice introduced by an even earlier group of Native
Americans, the Mayans.
The consumption of spruce-flavored
beverages which came to be called spruce beers was an equally important
colonial adaptation of the Native American practice of making spruce needle tea
to treat colds and a variety of other ailments. In 1535 Jacques Cartier came to North
America on his second voyage with a royal patent to claim new lands on behalf
of the King Frances I of France.
Ascending the Saint Lawrence River he finally reached the Iroquois
village of Stadacona, now lower Quebec City, and, as it was too late in the
year for a return trip to France, Cartier elected to winter over. By February
of 1536, the severity of the weather and the paucity of fresh food had taken
its toll; most of the crew had succumbed to scurvy and about fifty had died. In
what may have been an act of desperation, Cartier consulted the Iroquois
(allegedly Dom Agaya, the son of Chief Donnacona) and learned of the time-honored tribal
medicine made from spruce needles boiled in water. There is some uncertainty as
to the particular conifer consumed, some sources asserting that it was white
cedar. The concoction was quickly prepared and administered to the remainder of
the crew, who reportedly all miraculously recovered.
Scurvy was the scourge of sailors
and soldiers consigned to long periods of deployment absent the availability of
fresh fruit and vegetables with their attendant “vital amines” or vitamins.
Although scurvy was known in ancient times – it was described by Hippocrates of
Ancient Greece - it did not become a significant problem until the long voyages
to the New World that began in the 15th Century. Vasco da Gama lost
most of his crew to scurvy in his transit of the Cape of Good Hope as did
Magellan in his subsequent global circumnavigation. The cure for scurvy is Vitamin C or ascorbic
acid – the etymology attests to the association as the Latin word for scurvy is
scorbutus so that ascorbic acid
refers to “scurvy acid” - vitamin C is antiscorbutic. While the relationship between diet and
scurvy was historically recognized by some cultures, it was not conclusively
proven until trials were conducted by the Scottish physician James Lind in
1747. The use of spruce beer to provide therapeutic ascorbic acid was
apparently well known in the colonial New World, as is attested by John
Josselyn who wrote in 1672 that “the tops of green spruce boughs, boiled in
beer, is assuredly one of the best remedies for scurvy.” Even James Lind noted its efficacy in writing
that “the Newfoundland spruce beer … is an excellent medicine.” Captain James Cook was noted not only for his
nautical acumen but for the fact that he never lost a sailor to scurvy. It is
likely not coincidental that Cook spent five years surveying the coast of
Newfoundland and there learned of the benefits of spruce beer - which he subsequently employed to prevent
scurvy on his voyages of discovery in the Pacific.
The red spruce and its black and
white cousins have long been the mainstays of the eastern timber industry,
originally for the masts of sailing ships and subsequently for paper pulp. A
much more interesting application is in the use of spruce for the manufacture
of musical instruments. The uniform grain texture and density of spruce make it
one of the best woods for conveying the vibrations of the strings to the body
of the instrument for amplification, a property generally referred to as tone
wood. It is used to make the front, bass-bar, sound-post, the corner, top, and
bottom blocks, and linings of violins and fiddles, the front of guitars and the
most important single component of pianos, the sounding board. The long wood
fibers of spruce provide high strength and flexibility at a relatively light
weight, a fact that led the Wright Brothers to build the first effectual
aircraft out of spruce wood; spruce is still used to make gliders. However, the maligned “Spruce Goose,” a
wooden seaplane made by the Hughes Aircraft Company to ferry troops to Europe
during World War II (its first and only flight was in 1947) was made of birch,
the name a pejorative alliteration that Howard Hughes detested