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White spruce
Picea glauca
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 A large tree with a narrow crown, it can grow to 40 metres tall and 1 metre in diameter
when mature.
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Leaves
Needles are four-sided, sharp, and stiff, and are arranged spirally on the
twigs; whitish-green and foul smelling when young, they become pleasant smelling with age. |
Cones
Seed cones are light brown to purplish and hang from the upper branches.
The seed scales have a smooth, rounded outer edge. Pollen cones are pale red. |
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Young Bark
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Bark
The bark is loose, scaly, and greyish-brown. |
Where to find white
spruce
White spruce and its hybrids are found through-out the Interior from
valley floor to mid elevations. In the central Interior, white spruce interbreeds with
Engelmann spruce and is referred to as interior spruce. The pure species is generally
found only north of Dawson Creek.Habitat
White spruce grows in a wide range of environments. It frequently grows
with lodgepole pine, subalpine fir, aspen, birch, and willow. Oak fern, horsetail, and
gooseberry often grow under white spruce. Lynx, snowshoe hares, wolves, and moose live in
these northern forests. |
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Uses
Aboriginal people living in the Interior used most parts of the white
spruce tree. They made spruce saplings into snowshoe frames and sometimes into bows. They
heated the gum to make a glue to fasten skins onto bows and arrowheads onto shafts. They
used the decayed wood for tanning hides. Spruce bark was also used to make cooking pots
and trays for gathering berries. White spruce is a very important commercial tree
species, yielding excellent lumber and pulp.
Notes
White spruce is often shallow- rooted and susceptible to being blown over,
especially on thin or wet soils. Large areas of blown down spruce are prime breeding sites
for the spruce beetle, which can then spread to mature trees and kill thousands of
hectares of old-growth spruce. |
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