Description: Large tree crowned with long, slender, horizontal branches ending in ropelike, drooping twigs; trunk enlarged and buttressed at the base and tapering above.

Height: 20-30 m occasionally to 40 m

Diameter: 0.5-0.9 m, sometimes to 1.5 m

Needles: evergreen; spreading on all sides of twig; 1.5-3 cm long. Flattish or broadly triangular; blunt-pointed, four to six whitish lines above, shiny dark green below.

Bark: Small trees dull pinkish grey, freckled paler, branch-scars prominent with cracks each side. Older trees reddish-brown to dark purplish, thin, scaly with hard, circular flakes.

Twigs: reddish-brown, long and slender, finely hairy, rough with peg-like leaf bases.

Flowers: Male flowers large, globular, 3 cm, several towards the ends of hanging shoots, often numerous on old trees; female flowers clustered on branches of bigger trees, bright red, 4 cm, erect.

Cones: 6-12 cm long × 2.5 cm; cylindrical, short-stalked, purple, ripening to dull orange-brown; cone-scales thin, rounded, not toothed; paired, brown, long-winged seeds.

Habitat: High mountain ridges near timberline; with Red Fir and other conifers; seldom in pure stands. California plant community Red Fir Forest (m15).

Range: Chiefly in Siskiyou mountains of SW Oregon and NW California at 1000-2300 m.

The weeping habit serves to reduce breakage of branches by snowfall. Rare: this species is found in five National Forests and a special preserve, the Brewer Spruce Natural Area. It was named for its discoverer, William Henry Brewer (1828-1910), a professor of agriculture at Yale University and co-author of Botany of California. It is slow-growing, seldom exceeding 25 cm a year. Seedling trees have ascending slender branches, without pendulous shoots until about 1.5 m high. Introduced to the UK by Sargent who sent a single plant to Kew in 1897, where it thrives but grows slowly. It bore cones in 1920 and had reached 11m in 65 years. Other introductions followed from about 1911, and the biggest of these had reached about 15m in 60 years.

Information: Audubon (1980), Mitchell (1988), FNA 2 (1993), Bean III

Source: Hayes Garden World, Ambleside, Cumbria.

Purchased: One specimen (pot-grown) at around 0.8m, 1993.05.21

Planted: 1993.05.24 near eastern edge of US strip, B42A.

Progress: this tree seems to be doing well, given that it is naturally slow-growing. Apart from a slight set-back when nibbled by invading sheep, which didn't damage the leading shoot, it has grown steadily and looked healthy throughout its twelve growing seasons. It reached 1.5 m by 1998.10.07 and was 2.9m (with two leaders) on 2004.09.27. It has now started to show the drooping habit which is a characteristic of the branches and an adaptation to shedding heavy snow.

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