Picea omorika (Serbian Spruce)

This tree is used for timber and paper production as well as being grown for use as Christmas Trees. It is also the holder of the Royal Horticultural Society's prestigious Award of Garden Merit (AGM).

The name 'Picea' comes from the latin for 'pitch pine'. Pitch is a sugar rich gum extracted from spruce trees and used for brewing beer and as chewing gum by Native Americans. This particular 'picea' is from the limestone rocks in the Balkans, from the Drina River Valley in western Serbia and eastern Bosnia near Višegrad. It was originally discovered near the village of Zaovine on the Tara Mountain in 1875, and named by the Serbian botanist Josif Pancic. It was thought to have been introduced to britain in 1889 because of its pleasing shape and resistance to pollution.

This is one of the most adaptable spruces as it is equally at home on chalk soils or deep acid peats. However it grows best in moist well-drained, rich soils, in full sun or part shade. It will tolerate hot humid climates and pollution more than most other species of spruce.

Serbian spruce is a medium sized, slow-growing, evergreen conifer with a narrow, conical crown which can grow to 35m and have a trunk up to 1m in diameter. The bark is scaly and dark brown. It has thin graceful, sweeping branches that are upturned at the ends.  Shoots are buff-brown and hairy. The slightly flattened, glossy, dark green needles, 1-2cm long, have white undersides giving a silvery, bicolored effect. Egg-shaped 4-7cm cones, with stiff scales, are dark purple when young, but mature to a reddish brown 5-7 months after pollination.