Plantae > Tracheophyta > Pinopsida > Pinales > Pinaceae > Picea > Picea glauca

Picea glauca (Canadian spruce; White spruce; Alberta spruce)

Synonyms:
Language: Chi; Cze; Dut; Fre; Ger; Hrv, Srp; Hun; Ita; Nor; Rus; Spa

Wikipedia Abstract

Picea glauca, the white spruce, is a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in North America. Picea glauca was originally native from central Alaska all through the east, across southern/central Canada to the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. It now has become naturalized southward into the far northern USA border states like Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine; there is also an isolated population in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. It is also known as Canadian spruce, skunk spruce, cat spruce, Black Hills spruce, western white spruce, Alberta white spruce, and Porsild spruce.
View Wikipedia Record: Picea glauca

Infraspecies

Picea glauca glauca
Picea glauca var. albertiana
Picea glauca var. glauca (Attributes)

Attributes

Air Quality Improvement [1]  None
Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-Low
Carbon Capture [1]  Low
Screening - Summer [2]  Dense
Screening - Winter [2]  Dense
Shade Percentage [1]  91 %
Temperature Reduction [1]  Medium-Low
Wind Reduction [1]  Medium
Bloom Period [2]  Late Spring
Drought Tolerance [2]  High
Edible [3]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [2]  Low
Flower Type [3]  Monoecious
Frost Free Days [2]  60 days
Fruit/Seed Abundance [2]  Low
Fruit/Seed Begin [2]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [2]  Summer
Growth Form [2]  Single Stem
Growth Period [2]  Summer
Growth Rate [2]  Slow
Janka Hardness [4]  480 lbf (218 kgf) Very Soft
Leaf Type [3]  Evergreen
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Pollinators [3]  Wind
Propagation [2]  Bare Root, Container, Cutting, Seed
Root Depth [2]  30 inches (76 cm)
Scent [3]  The crushed leaves are quite aromatic. Some people find the smell distasteful saying that it is like skunks, whilst others say it has a pleasant smell like blackcurrants or mouldy grapefruit.
Seed Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Seed Vigor [2]  Low
Seeds Per [2]  186400 / lb (410941 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [2]  Conical
Specific Gravity [5]  0.4
Structure [3]  Tree
Usage [3]  A fairly wind resistant tree, it can be grown as part of a shelterbelt planting; The cultivar 'Denstat' has been recommended; The leaves have been burnt to repel insects; Various native North American Indian tribes made a string from the long roots of this species and used it to stitch the bark of their canoes and to make baskets etc; The rotten, dried, finely powdered wood has been used as a baby powder and as a treatment for skin rashes; The bark is a source of tannin; A yellow-brown dye can be obtained from the rotten wood; The pitch obtained from the trunk can be used as a waterproofing sealant in canoes; Wood - straight-grained, resilient, light, soft, not strong. Used for construction and as a source of pulp for paper making; The resonance of the wood, and its capacity to transmit vibrations, make it an ideal wood for guitars, violins, piano soundboards etc;
Vegetative Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Flower Color [2]  Yellow
Foliage Color [2]  Green
Fruit Color [2]  Brown
Height [3]  49 feet (15 m)
Width [3]  16.4 feet (5 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 2 Low Temperature: -50 F° (-45.6 C°) → -40 F° (-40 C°)
Hardiness Zone Maximum [1]  USDA Zone: 6 Low Temperature: -10 F° (-23.3 C°) → 0 F° (-17.8 C°)
Light Preference [2]  Mixed Sun/Shade
Soil Acidity [2]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [2]  Very Rich
Water Use [1]  Moderate
View Plants For A Future Record : Picea glauca

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Emblem of

Manitoba
South Dakota

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Chrysobothris pusilla[10]
Chrysomyxa abietis[10]

Range Map

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1i-Tree Species v. 4.0, developed by the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station and SUNY-ESF using the Horticopia, Inc. plant database.
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4Wood Janka Hardness Scale/Chart J W Morlan's Unique Wood Gifts
♦ 5Forest Inventory and Analysis DB version 5.1, May 4, 2013, U.S. Forest Service
♦ 6HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 7Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 8Making The Forest And Tundra Wildlife Connection
♦ 9Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 10Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2019). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-03-21; License: CC BY 4.0