SPRUCE TREE - PICEA EXCELSA

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Vintage-Views Antique Prints and Maps :: Antique Prints :: Natural History :: Botanical :: SPRUCE TREE - PICEA EXCELSA - PICEA ABIES, FICHTE,1894 Original Antique Wood Engraving

SPRUCE TREE - PICEA EXCELSA - PICEA ABIES, FICHTE,1894 Original Antique Wood Engraving

Click to enlarge

Approx Image Size : 8 X 5 inches
Approx Overall Size with Margins: 6 x 9 1/2 inches

CONDITION: FULL PAGE PRINT - PRINT ON THE BACK. Excellent Condition. Image is clean, clear, sharp with beautiful detail. As scanned. Printed on cream color coated paper. This beautiful print would look great matted and framed. Or an art supply store can provide you with a selection of frames for old art treasures.

The Norway Spruce (Picea abies) is a large evergreen coniferous tree growing to 35-55 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 1-1.5 m. It grows throughout northeast Europe from Norway and Poland eastward, and also in the mountains of central Europe, southwest to the western end of the Alps, and southeast in the Carpathians and Balkans to the extreme north of Greece. The northern limit is in the arctic, just north of 70°N in Norway. Its eastern limit in Russia is hard to define, due to extensive hybridisation and intergradation with the Siberian Spruce (Picea obovata), but is usually given as the Ural Mountains. However, trees showing some Siberian Spruce characters extend as far west as much of northern Finland, with a few records in northeast Norway. The hybrid is known as Picea x fennica. Norway Spruce shoots are orange-brown and glabrous (hairless). The leaves are needle-like, 12-24 mm long, quadrangular in cross-section (not flattened), and dark green on all four sides with inconspicuous stomatal lines. The cones are 9-17 cm long (the longest of any spruce), and have triangular-pointed scale tips. They are green or reddish, maturing brown 5-7 months after pollination. The seeds are black, 4-5 mm long, with a pale brown 15 mm wing. The tallest measured tree, 63 m tall, is in Perucica Virgin Forest, Sutjeska National Park, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Populations in southeast Europe tend to have on average longer cones with more pointed scales; these are sometimes distinguished as Picea abies var. acuminata, but there is extensive overlap in variation with trees from other parts of the range. Some botanists treat Siberian Spruce as a subspecies of Norway Spruce, though in their typical forms, they are very distinct, the Siberian Spruce having cones only 5-10 cm long, with smoothly rounded scales, and pubescent (hairy) shoots. Another spruce with smoothly rounded cone scales and hairy shoots occurs rarely in the central Alps in eastern Switzerland. It is also distinct in having thicker, blue-green leaves. Many texts treat this as a variant of Norway Spruce, but it is as distinct as many other spruces, and appears to be more closely related to Siberian Spruce, Schrenk's Spruce (P. schrenkiana) from central Asia and Morinda Spruce (P. smithiana) in the Himalaya. Treated as a distinct species, it takes the name Alpine Spruce (Picea alpestris). As with Siberian Spruce, it hybridises extensively with Norway Spruce; pure specimens are rare. Norway Spruce is one of the most widely planted spruces, both in and outside of its native range, used in forestry for timber and paper production, and as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens. It is also widely planted for use as a Christmas tree. It is naturalised in some parts of North America, though not so extensively as to be considered an invasive weed tree. (wikipedia)

Wood engraving is, simply, the craft, or technique, of engraving, using the medium of wood. This was the earliest type of engraving. The original method — which is more precisely termed wood cutting, since it used a knife rather than engraving tools — was developed around 1400. The outlines of the design to be engraved were put down on a side of smooth-grained wood, and, usually with a knife, the excess surface of the wood block (all but the lines) would be cut away, a process called blocking. This left a set of raised wooden lines on the face of the block. In order make a print of this engraving, thick ink was applied to the raised design. This is known as a relief. Finally, a sheet of paper (or other material) was pressed firmly against the wood in order to assure that all the lines printed. This method led directly to the development of the printing press, and the 1453 introduction of a press using movable type by Johann Gutenberg.

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SKU	0527533k6
Quantity in stock	No items available
Price:	US$15.00

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