Spruce
Trunks are long and straight; crowns dense and narrow. Evergreen leaves are needlelike, usually 4-sided, often sharply pointed and borne on woody pegs or stalks. Seed cones are 2-10 cm long, nonwoody with rounded scales and small bracts. Pollination occurs in spring. Winged seeds are shed in the fall.
Spruces, used for pulp, paper and lumber, are the most important commercial conifers. Canada's tallest reported tree (95 m) is a Sitka spruce, the "Carmanah Giant," in the Carmanah Valley on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Cameron Hills
This boreal plains region of Alberta is characterized by an abundance of black spruce (photo by Cleve Wershler).
White Spruce
Also called Canadian spruce, with female flowers (top left), male flowers (bottom left) and cones (artwork by Claire Tremblay).
Sitka Spruce
A rain forest consisting of Sitka spruce on Moresby Island. The old growth forests of cedar and Sitka spruce on Canada's West Coast harbour rare mosses and unusual animal subspecies (photo by Tim Fitzharris).
Author JOHN N. OWENS
Links to Other Sites
The Plant List
Search this online database for information about one million plant species from around the world. Also, click on "major plant groups" at the bottom of the page to browse descriptions of species of interest. Fungi and algae are excluded. From the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK and the Missouri Botanical Garden in the US.
The Ecological Framework of Canada
This site describes Canada's ecozones and the general concepts of ecological classification. Based on data developed by Environment Canada.
Flora of North America
The FNA website features information on the names, taxonomic relationships, continent-wide distributions, and morphological characteristics of all plants native and naturalized found in North America north of Mexico.
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