Spruce are not pine doggone it

[fazool]

When I grew up my parents called any evergreen tree a "pine" tree. Our yard is populated with Spruce trees that I planted and I noticed my wife also calls them "pine trees" like I do .

So, it must be a regional generational thing.

I mean, loving guitars and wood and trees I am so familiar with the differentiation but doggone it it slips out in lazy conversation I keep calling them "pine trees".

t's weird - it's like we grew up on some alien planet where any evergreen was called a mystical "pine".

Did anyone else here that? In fact we were told all those different trees are TYPES of pine trees.

Silly how that bad word misuse as a child stuck with me.

[Truckjohn]

The old Monty Python "Larch" tree bit comes to mind..

[Twelvefret]

If I remember correctly, the Hill's book on Stradivarius referred to spruce as pine.

[Kerbie]

I live in pine country... and I've never once heard spruce referred to as pine.

[Wengr]

Yes. around here, if the tree stays green though the winter, it's a pine tree. Few know or care to differentiate further.

[J Patrick]

...my wife...who is originally from New York...also calls all evergreens pines even though she made her way out west at the age of 18 and has spent nearly forty years living amidst mostly spruce and fir tees...a regional thing indeed...

[Bob Womack]

My father grew up for about half his childhood in a little mountain town called "Spruce Pine" in NC. We differentiated 'twixt the two as I grew up in the western foothills of the Smokey Mountains. My dogs differentiate between them as well. Developers around here always put up spruce privacy fences which I must confess are crap because they loose mass in the weather really quickly and thus become rickety and loose. After a few years I refer to a spruce picket fence as a "fence-ish." It retains the appearance of a fence and occupies the place of a fence but my 110 lb Yellow Labrador Retriever, Boo!, knows the difference. He expertly sizes up a spruce picket fence, takes aim, and shoots through practically effortlessly. One time I saw him sizing up the fence for a dash. I lunged and grabbed his collar. My neighbor enjoyed the spectacle of him bursting through perfectly between a pair of pickets and dragging me behind, for all the world looking like a man being squirted out of a toothpaste tube.

Pine, on the other hand, is dense enough and contains enough sap to to not loose its mass as quickly. Boo! takes one wary look and knows that it is dense enough that he'd telescope against it like Wyle E. Coyote against a cliff face.

They are different. Even he knows.

Bob

[KevWind]

Regional perhaps and or familial or both

I grew up in Pacific Northwest and the trees were distinctly either Doug Firs or Fir. or Spruce, or Pine.

But I suppose the "slang generic" mis name, could stem from the fact they all are bear "cones" and people associate the word cone with Pinecone.

Could have also gone to all being called "Fir's" since all are conifers but " pine " seems to have one the day

Kinnda like the way all facial tissue is often called Kleenex

[ishtar]

Not completely set in stone, but, generally, if you pull a needle out of a spruce tree, only one comes out, and it is squarish if you roll it between you thumb and finger. Pine trees often have clumps of needles that come out together when pulled off a branch, and they are rounder. Fir needles are flatter than spruce or pine needles. Square spruce, plenty pine, flat fir... A rule of thumb and forefinger... Correct me if I am wrong in this generality.

[mr. beaumont]

City boy here...we just called 'em all "evergreens."

[Song Writer]

But any guitar we may try to sell that has a spruce top is never advertised as a "pine top" guitar now is it? I think we know the diff.

[Nyghthawk]

I live in East Texas "behind the Pine Curtain." Our forests are made up in large measure by 4 different kinds of pine trees: Slash, Loblolly, Shortleaf and Longleaf. Slash and Loblolly are grown for timber.

We also have a smattering of Eastern Red Cedar and Juniper. No firs.

I was once married to a forestry major. I would never confuse an evergreen with a pine.

[philjs]

Originally Posted by fazool

When I grew up my parents called any evergreen tree a "pine" tree. Our yard is populated with Spruce trees that I planted and I noticed my wife also calls them "pine trees" like I do...snip...Silly how that bad word misuse as a child stuck with me.

Your parents weren't wrong and you're not misusing the word: the family is the Pinaceae, the pine family, and it includes cedars, firs, hemlocks, larches, pines and spruces. So, spruces are pines, dag-nab-it.

Wikipedia is your friend (most of the time)...

Phil

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by philjs

Your parents weren't wrong and you're not misusing the word: the family is the Pinaceae, the pine family, and it includes cedars, firs, hemlocks, larches, pines and spruces. So, spruces are pines, dag-nab-it.

Wikipedia is your friend (most of the time)...

Phil

Well with that thought , since humans and all other great apes are in the family "Hominidae"
I guess we call all humans and chimps, gorillas , etc. .... Homs .... dag-na- bit

[JCave]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Well with that thought , since humans and all other great apes are in the family "Hominidae"
I guess we call all humans and chimps, gorillas , etc. .... Homs .... dag-na- bit

Thanks, I needed a chuckle to begin my day.