Description: Large tree with blue-green foliage and a conical crown of stout, horizontal branches in rows.

Height: 20-30m, rarely to 50m

Diameter: 0.5-0.9m, oldest to 1.5m

Needles: spreading on all sides of twig from very short leafstalks; 1.6-3 cm long. 4-angled, sharp-pointed, rigid; with resinous odour when crushed; dull blue-green or bluish, with whitish lines.

Bark: grey or brown, furrowed and scaly.

Cones: 6-11 cm long, cylindrical, mostly stalkless, shiny light brown; cone scales long, thin and flexible, narrowed and irregularly toothed; paired, long-winged seeds.

Habitat: Narrow bottomlands along mountain streams; often in pure stands.

Range: Rocky Mountains from S & W Wyoming and E Idaho south to N & E Arizona and S New Mexico; 1800m to treeline (up to 3300m).

A popular christmas tree in the USA and used in shelterbelts. The species has a high resistance to climatic rigours, and also adapts well to wet terrain with stagnant water. It is used on a limited scale as a forest tree in Germany, but is more commonly seen as an ornamental. Discovered by Dr. Parry in 1862, and in commerce in the UK by 1875, probably from seeds sent by Roezl, though some of Parry's 1865 collections may have been sent to Britain. However, the typical form of the tree is still very rare. More commonly grown in cultivation here are named selected seedlings from the bluest forms occurring within the natural population in Colorado. The earliest of these, 'glauca', was introduced in 1877 from cuttings taken by Anthony Waterer during a visit to Prof. Sargent at Harvard, from a tree raised from Parry's 1865 seed.

Information: Audubon (1980), Mitchell (1978), Bean III, FNA 2 (1993)

Source: Weasdale Nurseries, Newbiggin-on-Lune

Purchased: 1993.11.19, one at 1½-2'

Planted: B23D

Progress: 0.85 m on 1998.10.07. This tree was growing very slowly and was probably on too dry and possibly too shaded a site. It also didn't fit in terribly well with the adjacent trees, and therefore was moved over the winter 1998/9 to a spot in our "Rocky Mountain Riparian Forest" area. It took quite a performance hit from this move, and shed a lot of needles, but then started to recover. However, it is still at just over 1.2m, and has fewer needles than it really needs to support it, so I am unsure whether it might be better to buy a new, younger and healthier tree.

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