Picea 79 



Distribution 



The Servian spruce was first made known to science by Panciic, who discovered it 

 in south-western Servia, near the village of Zaovina, on ist August 1875. Its area is 

 a small one, occupying about 20 kilometres long by 1 5 kilometres wide on both sides 

 of the r>rina valley, the boundary between Servia and Bosnia. Here it occurs on 

 limestone rocks at altitudes varying from 2700 to 5300 feet. It grows in small 

 groves in the wetter places in the ravines, but it does not there reach such a height 

 as it attains in the rockier parts of the mountains, where it forms part of the mixed 

 forest of Austrian and common pines, common spruce, beech, and sycamore. Pure 

 woods of Omorika occur at higher elevations, between 4700 and 5300 feet, where 

 sub-alpine plants accompany it. Wettstein gives the following as the composition 

 of the characteristic Omorika woods : 



Dominant Trees. Picea Omorika, Pinus sylvestris, Carpinus duinensis, 

 Picea excelsa, Fagus sylvatica, Populus tremula, Abies pectinata, 

 Ostrya carpinifolia, Salix sp., Pinus austriaca. 



Underwood. Corylus avellana, Coiinus coggygria, Spircea cana, with 

 Rhamnus fallax and Lonicera alpigena at high altitudes. 



Ground-herbage. Aspidium Filix-mas, lobatum, and angulare. 



Wettstein ' says than an Omorika forest has a peculiar and gloomy aspect, the 

 slender stems with their short branches and columnar or spindle-shaped crowns 

 looking quite different from any other type of European forest. In mixed forests, 

 the straight single stems, arising out of the general mass of the other trees, are 

 equally peculiar. 



Omorika seedlings and young trees are only found in exposed rocky situations, 

 and in the bottoms of wet shaded ravines. The tree in the wild state is strictly 

 confined to limestone soil, and never grows on the slate formation which is found in 

 parts of the Drina valley, yet when cultivated, it does very well, at least in youth, on 

 soils which are not calcareous. 



The largest tree^ recorded is one felled by Pancic, which measured 42.2 metres 

 in height, and 0.385 metres in diameter. It showed 137 rings, and the width 

 of the rings gradually diminished from 0.28 cm. in the 3rd decade to 0.04 cm. in 

 the 14th decade. Pancic says that the tree has an inclination to grow with a spiral 

 stem, and that it loses its branches up to about half its height, the largest of the 

 branches being only about 2 metres in length. The cones are borne, according to 

 him, upright on the topmost branches only, but elsewhere they hang down with their 

 tips directed slightly upwards. 



PanCic, in his first account of the tree, reports that he had heard on good 

 authority of its occurrence in the mountains of Montenegro ; it has since been 



' Sitzungsber. kais. Akad. d. IViss., xcix. 503 ; Oesterr. Bot, Zeitschr. 1890, p. 357. 

 ^ Letter of Pan4ic, quoted in Stein's article on " Omorika " in Gartenflora, 1887, p. 14. 



