The Blue Spruce (Picea pungens) is a member of the pine family. It is also known as Colorado Blue Spruce, White Spruce, Silver Spruce, and Water Spruce.
Blue Spruce tend to grow in a conical shape up to 165 feet tall. It is the State Tree of both Utah and Colorado. It is a slow-growing and long-lived tree. Some individuals have been reported to be over 600 years old.
Blue Spruce is native to the central and southern Rocky Mountains, but is used extensively throughout the eastern United States as an ornamental landscaping tree.
Blue Spruce are coniferous evergreens. Their needles grow singly on the branch, unlike the Red and White Pine trees you can see elsewhere in this series. The needles are stiff, sharp-tipped and have a silvery-white or blue-green color. They tend to be about an inch long.
Blue Spruce cones are green or purple in color early on and become brown as they mature. They have a roughly oval shape, especially before they mature. The tree won't begin to produce cones until about 20 years of age, with its maximum seed production between 50 and 150 years of age.
The bark is relatively thick and a grey-brown color. It tends to break into furrows and rounded ridges.
The main uses for Blue Spruce are in landscaping and as Christmas trees. Because the wood tends to be brittle and full of knots, it has little commercial use as lumber.
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