Plant Family: Pinaceae
Growth Form: Medium-sized tree with a conical shape, typically more open-branched than other spruces.
Leaves: Prickly needles are 1 – 2.5 cm long and stick out from the twigs in all directions; they are yellow-green on new growth, becoming darker green with age.
Bark: Gray-brown and scaly.
Cones: From 2 – 4 cm long, the brittle scales have smooth edges; the cones fall from the tree soon after maturity.
Habitat: Uplands, mountain slopes; Red Spruce is the most common spruce species in New England.
Range: Eastern Canada, New England, and New York, south in the Appalachians to the Great Smoky Mountains, making it the southernmost spruce species in the eastern U. S. It does not share the transcontinental range of White and Black Spruce.
Similar Species: White Spruce has cones with flexible scales and is more densely branched; Black Spruce has a narrower spire-like growth form.
Comments: Red Spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia. Every December the province of Nova Scotia donates a large Christmas tree to the city of Boston to thank its citizens for their help after the Halifax Explosion of 1917. The tree is often Red Spruce, but may also be White Spruce or Balsam Fir.
