Spruce
The Latin name for Spruce is Picea abies. Spruce found its way into the country from the north and east about 5,000 years ago and is Sweden's most common species of tree.
Spruce can grow up to 60 meters tall and the needles are dark green, rigid and one to two centimetres in length. Spruce thrives in both healthy and wet ground as well as in fertile and medium-quality land. However, it is less suited to dry and heavy soils.
Pine
The Latin name for pine is Pinus silvestris. After spruce, pine is Sweden’s second most common tree species.
Pine usually grows to between 20 and 30 metres tall and the needles are attached in pairs, are grey-green in colour and three to four centimetres in length. It is best suited to dry soil of medium quality or lower. It also thrives in healthy and medium-quality soil and land with a high proportion of fine earth.
Contorta
About 280,000 hectares of SCA’s lands have been planted with Pinus contorta. The contorta pine grows 35-40% better than Swedish pine and has greater establishment and survival capacity.
SCA’s contorta forests originate from Yukon and British Colombia in western Canada. It was here that Stig Hagner, forest director at SCA between 1964 and 1991, collected seeds and grafting sticks. Later, these became the foundation of SCA’s contorta seed plantations.
An increasing volume of contorta area is now mature for thinning. In the next 20 years, SCA will be able to thin between 100,000 and 300,000 cubic metres of contorta each year.
Deciduous trees
By deciduous trees we are referring to birch, alder, aspen, sallow and mountain ash. Birch is Sweden’s most common tree species, followed by aspen.
The Latin name for birch is Betula pendula, aspen is called Populus tremula, alder Alnus glutinosa, mountain ash Sorbus aucuparia and sallow is known as Salix caprea.
Source: Skogsencyklopedin (Forest encyclopaedia)