How does the spruce bloom?

It is customary for everyone to see a spruce on New Year's Day, decorated with bright lights, but few know that common spruce can be no less beautiful in wildlife, this happens during its flowering period.

Spruce is a tree that grows up to 35 meters high, but at the same time remains very slender and spreads its branches no more than 1.5 meters. The tree grows very slowly for the first decade of its life. It begins to bloom only after 25-30 years. Due to the fact that the spruce is a monoecious plant (that is, both male and female seeds are on the same tree, and pollination occurs with the help of the wind), conifers bloom before deciduous trees, since the leaves of other plants prevent the seeds of this tree from spreading.

Spruce blooming is a very interesting process that very few have seen. Spruce blooms in the spring, namely in late spring. As a rule, this happens in the wilderness, it is for this reason that few people have seen its flowering.

The flowers, which are female, form small bumps. At first, they are very small, painted in bright pink, and then turn red. It is they that turn into the very decorations of the spruce, at the end of ripening they turn into a dark crimson color. The female cone develops at the very tip of the shoot, looks up. There are times when the bump looks sideways. This is because the branch itself is tilted and the bud is oriented towards the branch.

And male flowers look like elongated earrings, pollen is formed in them, they scatter it throughout May. Pollen grains in spruce do not have a great ability to fly, as, for example, in pine. But the wind can still carry them several kilometers under favorable conditions. Under the scales, seeds develop called ovules. After a while, the bud becomes ready for pollination. At that time, her awn begins the process of increased growth. At the same time, the scales begin to move apart.

After the pollination process has passed, all the scales close back, forming a barrier for anyone to enter the cone. With this protection, the penetration of various pests and beetles is excluded. At that time the transformation of a red or pink flower begins, first into green, giving off crimson, then into a brown cone... During the same period, the lump changes its position, it no longer looks up, but down.

And already in the middle of autumn, seeds ripen from these flowers, which become the prey of forest dwellers, for example, squirrels. If we compare the spruce with the pine, then it can be noted that the flowering and ripening of the cone takes place in one season. Already at the beginning of winter, the seeds are considered fully ripe. This is how the wonderful flowering process of such a tree as spruce ends.

Spruce bloom does not happen so often, for this reason very few people see this miracle of nature. This happens for the following reasons.

• The spruce blooms at a time when people practically do not go to the forest, around the end of May or the beginning of June.In this month, people are in no hurry to go to the forest, since it's too late to go skiing, and it's too early to come for berries and mushrooms.
• Flowering occurs in trees that are already quite mature (approximately 25-30 years from the moment of planting).

For more information on the flowering of spruce, see the video below.