Distribution
The Servian spruce was first made known to science by Pančic, who discovered it in south-western Servia, near the village of Zaovina, on 1st August 1875. Its area is a small one, occupying about 20 kilometres long by 15 kilometres wide on both sides of the Drina 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, Cotinus coggygria, Spiræa cana, with Rhamnus fallax and Lonicera alpigena at high altitudes.
- Ground-herbage.—Aspidium Filix-mas, lobatum, and angulare.
Wettstein[1] 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[2] recorded is one felled by Pančic, 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. Pančic 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.
Pančic, 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
