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Anchorage, Alaska
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SPRUCE   Picea mariana & P. glauca

Description: Plant

Text Box: Evergreen with needle-leaves and oval cones. White spruce has long, slender cones; black spruce has smaller, rounder cones.

 

Habitat:

White spruce is the most common tree in Interior forests, occurring up to tree line at 3,500 ft.  Black spruce grows over permafrost.

 

Uses:

Spruce is used extensively by Athabascans. The sap is used in many ways.  In fact Athabascans differentiate between four kinds of sap. Sap is drunk as a spring tonic or as medicine against tuberculosis; it is used as glue to seal birch bark canoes and baskets; also as hair dressing, chewing gum, and dressing for wounds. Spruce roots are thinly split for use as string; juice from spruce roots is used as eye medicine. Tea from spruce needles is used as an emetic and as cough medicine. Inner bark is an emergency food, cut in strips like noodles.

  

Special Harvest or Processing Comments:

Needles gathered for botanical purposes must be the "tips" - that is, the new year's growth, which is still light green colored.  Older needles are undrinkable. Cones should be whole and free of sticks and branches. Cones can be gathered by following lumbering or land clearing operations and picking them up off the ground. Or cone gathering can be combined with a firewood cutting operation..  Cones are bought both by weight and volume. They are heavier in the spring and more voluminous in the fall. When selling cones for ornamentals, they should be shipped in boxes or rigid containers to minimize crushing and breakage.

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