Description
White Spruce are found on a variety of sites from swampy bog soils to rocky hill sides. On the higher exposed sites in its northern range, it forms low, dense mats due to the cold dry winter winds. I have seen white spruce growing as far south as northern Georgia growing on Brasstown Bald, the highest mountain in Georgia.
The needles of the white spruce are dark blue green, arranged in a spiral, more crowded on the upper side, 1/2-3/4″ long, four-sided, kind of stinky in fragrance and persist for 6 to 10 years. White spruce is a broadly pyramidal tree with upwardly sweeping branches near the end with a broad open crown. The flowers of the white spruce are in solitary cone like cluster, forming May to June, pale red turning yellow, spirally arranged on a central axis. Cones of the white spruce 1-2″ long, cylindrical, and fall off the tree soon after shedding the seeds. Seeds are about 1/8″ long. Cones on the White Spruce hang down and are green when immature then mature a red-brown color.
Mainly a northern tree, White Spruce is fund from northern Canada to Alaska, south to southern the southern Canadian provinces, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
