Sitka spruce & Norway spruce

January 2, 2021January 11, 2024
Conifer, Flora and Fauna, Native to BC
by dhir

All photos taken by the author. Last updated January 4, 2021.

A Sitka spruce (Picea sichensis) tree near Burnaby Lake. The easiest way to identify these trees is to first look for fallen cones and needles then look for the scaly bark on nearby trees.

We have a cuckoo clock, given to my eldest son by his great-grandfather. We always called the weights underneath “pinecones” until I started my obsessive learning about trees. I now know those are not pinecones, but spruce cones. And, to be more specific, they really look like Norway spruce cones.

A 1500 g cuckoo clock weight resembling a closed Norway spruce cone.

From reading, I know that the native spruce tree we are most likely to come across is the Sitka spruce tree. However, in our urban area I have found many more Norway spruce trees than Sitka spruce trees, probably due to the Sitka spruce’s huge size: typical specimens are over 70 m tall when mature and the tallest known Sitka spruce trees are over 90 m in height! Norway spruce trees, for comparison, grow to about 40 m tall.

Like most conifers, I found it easiest to look for the cones, twigs, and needles on the ground before finding Sitka spruce trees.

A Sitka spruce cone and straight green needles still attached to a fallen branchlet.

Sitka spruce cones. When wet, the papery scales are closed like the bottom cone. When dry, the papery scales open up, like the top cone.

Three dry Sitka spruce cones varying in size from 5 cm to 7 cm long. The edges of the scales are ragged.

Top view of a dry Sitka spruce cone. Notice the ragged edges of the papery scales.

Sitka spruce seeds and needles. The needles are about 2 cm long while the single-winged seeds are less than 1 cm long. The seeds and wings on the right have separated from each other.

Sitka spruce twig and needles. The needles leave behind small pegs on the twig when they fall off. The needles are sharp with squared off notched bases. These ones have the sharp tips pointing to the right. The top needle shows the top surface and the bottom needle shows the bottom surface. Unlike other conifer needles I have seen these ones are very close to the same colour on the top and bottom.

Sitka spruce needles are arranged all around the twigs like a bottle brush. Each needle has four sides but the needle is flattened so that a cross-section of a needle would be diamond shaped and feel pretty flat.

Once you’ve found some cones, and possible twigs and needles, look at nearby trees for the characteristic bark breaking into scales. I have twice found Sitka spruce cones without being able to identify the tree that they came from.

Half of the bark of this Sitka spruce tree was whitish while the other half was dark grey.

This Sitka spruce tree was growing twigs with needles from spots where its lower branches had been removed next to a trail.

Sitka spruce trees were used in many ways by British Columbia’s First Peoples. The wood, bark, roots, gum, and branches were all used by many different groups, for everything from house boards, roofing, flooring, and siding, to baskets and rope. Coastal First Peoples used the cambium and phloem (layer of the tree between the wood and bark) as food. The hardened pitch could be chewed. For more information please see Nancy J. Turner’s books Plant Technology of First Peoples in British Columbia and Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples.

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A Norway spruce tree growing in a park. It appears that the lower branches have been pruned. I have seen other unpruned Norway spruces with a stereotypical Christmas tree pyramidal shape.

Norway spruce (Picea abies) is very easy to find and identify. It has the largest cones of any spruce tree, usually 10-15 cm long, and cascading branchlets that remind me of someone holding out their arms with chains dangling.

Like the Sitka spruce, I would recommend you look for the cones, twigs, and needles on the ground to find this tree.

Dry (open) Norway spruce cone, bottom, and Sitka spruce cone, top.

Wet (closed) Norway spruce cone, bottom, and Sitka spruce cone, top.

Norway spruce cone, branchlet, and twig. Like the Sitka spruce, Norway spruce needles leave behind pegs on the twig when they fall off.

Norway spruce twig with needles. Notice the curved shape of the needles, unlike the straight and flat Sitka spruce needles. Norway spruce needles are very sharp and four-sided. You can roll a Norway spruce needles between your fingers, unlike a flattened diamond-shaped Sitka spruce needle.

After you have found some Norway spruce cones, look up for the scaly bark and hanging branchlets.

Norway spruce bark. Like the Sitka spruce, mature tree bark starts to form large scales.

Norway spruce bark with resin seeping from a wound.

A Norway spruce tree’s lower branches. Notice the almost vertical arrangement of branchlets and lack of cones. Most Norway spruce trees that I have seen appear to only have cones on the upper third of the tree.

Looking up at a Norway spruce tree. The uppermost branches have the cones which is why it is helpful to look on the ground for fallen cones rather than tens of meters above you. The cones on the tree look like giant hot dogs from far away (see the first Norway spruce photo in this post).

I’ve noticed while driving lately that the Norway spruce cones are very bright next to the dark green needles so you can likely identify these common introduced (non-native) trees from far away. You may also find some other spruce trees: blue spruce is one easy-to-identify species that comes to mind.

So, head outside this first week of 2021, then look both down and up to find yourself the prickly needles and scaly bark of native Sitka and non-native Norway spruce trees.

Books I used:

“Picea abies” and “Picea sitchensis.” Vancouver Tree Book: a Living City Field Guide, by David Tracey, Pure Wave Media, 2016, pp. 58-59, 65.

“Sitka spruce.” Native Trees of British Columbia, by Reese Halter et al., Global Forest-Pure Science, 2003, p. 52.

“Sitka Spruce.” Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples, by Nancy J. Turner, Royal British Columbia Museum, 2017, pp. 32-33.

“Sitka Spruce.” Plant Technology of First Peoples in British Columbia, by Nancy J. Turner, Royal British Columbia Museum, 2019, pp. 87–89.

“Sitka spruce” Tree Book: Learning to Recognize Trees of British Columbia, by Roberta Parish and S. M. Thomson, Canadian Forest Service, 1994, pp. 68-71