Sitka Spruce

The Sitka Spruce is extremely common over most of Scotland, from the Galloway hills to Grampian, from the Borders to the North-West Highlands Its native lands are the North West of the USA and Canada, where it was discovered by explorers in the 18 th century,and seen to be very important to the Native American people. The Scottish plant collector David Douglas brought Sitka seeds to Britain and it was soon realised that it was hardy and fast-growing here, and so became a valuable timber plantation tree In the early decades of the 20th century Britain was very short of timber and from the 1920’s and 30’s Sitka Spruce was widely planted, becoming the main component of vast new plantations, the familiar dark green spiky forests. The forests are usually harvested at about sixty years old, though in the wild it is long-lived for a fast-growing conifer,up to 800 years. The Sitka is an evergreen and a conifer. Its seeds are borne in long hanging papery cones of pale brown, usually high up on the tree and rarely seen on younger trees. The cones – ‘durchan’ in Gaelic - are formed from tiny yellow/pink flowers on the female tree, pollinated by little red flowers on the male. More noticeable than the flowers are the translucent bronze cases that enfold the tight cluster of new needles, shedding as the bright green needles grow and darken. When the needles - in Gaelic ‘snàthad’ - are mature, they are dark green with bluish underside, growing densely around the coarse pale twigs, stiff and sharp. The tree is upright and regular, branched from low down – heavy and drooping on the oldest trees - and towering to a sharp point. The bark – often difficult to see under the low branches – is a pale scaly brown, often with spots and trickles of drying white resin, which is fresh and fruity and tangy to the smell. The softwood timber is used for paper, and a variety of construction purposes, but the whole tree has had a wide variety of uses in its native lands, including baskets, clothing, roofing and canoes.