Today I went to pickup my tree seedling from the Quincy Public Works Department. The city has an "Evergreen Program", which I think is a great idea: you drop off your Christmas tree to be recycled, and they give you a coupon to pick up a baby tree in the spring. They're planning on planting 12,000 trees in the city. The letter I received promised me a Bracted Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), which is native. Unfortunately, when I got home I realized my seedling was a Norway Spruce (Picea abies). It's ironic to me that most of Europe has been reforested with American tree species over the past few centuries, and now we're growing and planting European trees here. While Norway Spruce is not considered invasive in the U.S., it is on the "watch lists" of some groups studying invasive species, and has been identified as a problem species in Canada.
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