Description: Tree with rows of horizontal branches forming a conical crown; smaller and shrubby at tree-line.

Height: 12-30m

Diameter: 0.3-0.6m

Needles: evergreen; 12-20mm long. Stiff, four-angled, sharp-pointed; spreading mainly on the upper side of the twig, from very short leafstalks; blue-green, with whitish lines; exuding skunk-like odour when crushed.

Bark: grey or brown, thin, smooth or scaly; cut surface of inner bark whitish.

Twigs: orange-brown, slender, hairless, rough, with peg-like bases.

Cones: 4-6cm long; cylindrical, shiny light brown, hanging at end of twigs, falling at maturity; cone-scales thin and flexible, margins nearly straight and without teeth; paired brown, long-winged seeds.

Habitat: Many soil types in coniferous forests; muskegs, bogs and river banks to montane slopes; sometimes in pure stands. A dominant tree of interior forests of Canada and Alaska.

Range: Across N America near northern limit of trees from Alaska and British Columbia east to Labrador, south to Maine, and west to Minnesota; local in NW Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming; from near sea level to timberline at 600-1500m.

White Spruce and Black Spruce are the most widely distributed conifers in North America after Common Juniper which rarely reaches tree size. Where their ranges overlap, White Spruce and Engelmann Spruce hybridise and intergrade completely. Various kinds of wildlife, including deer, rabbits and grouse browse spruce foliage in winter. Introduced to Europe in the late 17th century, but not widely grown until 19th. Various dwarf and glaucous cultivars are grown in gardens, but the species has reached 28m in the New Forest (planted 1861).

Information: Audubon (1980), Lawrence (1985), FNA 2 (1993), Mitchell (1978)

Source: Weasdale Nurseries, Newbiggin-on-Lune, Cumbria.

Purchased: 1993.03.16, by Pam Bell and Barnard Castle Doctors, three specimens at 1.5-2 ft.

Planted: 1993.04.02, US Strip, North end in our "Boreal Spruce-Fir Forest" area, at B49G, B53B and B59E.

Progress: Many new buds evident, late April 1993; bright green young foliage growing early May, each tree at a slightly different stage, perhaps a week or so apart: see photographs (not yet on website, keep watching...).

B53B One of the trees was on a particularly unfavourable site, under the outer branches of a 25m sycamore, giving it both high shade and dry soil. This was growing off-vertical towards the light, but in 1998 has straightened out. It has reached only 1.35 m, but a lot of that was in 1998, with a wet summer.

B59E This tree was under the branches of a crab apple, which had to be pruned out of the way of the tree's leader, up to 2.5 m in October 1998. 6.7m in September 2004, and now growing above the crab apple branches.

B49GThe third tree has apparently the best site, but isn't growing quite so fast. This was 2.4m in 1998, 4.6m by September 2004.

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