Terry L. Ettinger Horticulture Consulting Services
Meeting The Needs Of Today With A Vision For The Future
Special Topics
Evergreen Identification
Spruce (Picea)
Norway spruce (Picea abies),
at right, and Colorado/Blue spruce (P. pungens), along with white pine
are the largest and most common evergreen trees in Central New York landscapes.
Even the “dwarf” forms of white spruce such as `Dwarf Alberta' spruce (ten to fifteen feet tall),
at left, and `Bird's Nest'
spruce (four to six feet tall and ten feet wide), below at right, become much larger than most of us realize.
The most reliable way to identify spruce from other evergreens found in Central New York landscapes is to cut a needle
in half and take a very close look. If the needle is square in cross section, then it’s absolutely a spruce
as no other evergreens have
square needles! In fact, even
if you simply roll a spruce needle between your fingers, it’s pretty easy to distinguish its four corners (see arrows in
photo at left).