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Picea mariana (Mill.) Britt., Sterns and Poggenburg

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Picea mariana' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/picea/picea-mariana/). Accessed 2024-04-18.

Genus

Common Names

  • Black Spruce

Synonyms

  • Abies mariana Mill.
  • Picea nigra (Ait.) Link
  • Pinus nigra Ait.

Glossary

apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
bud
Immature shoot protected by scales that develops into leaves and/or flowers.
glaucous
Grey-blue often from superficial layer of wax (bloom).

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Picea mariana' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/picea/picea-mariana/). Accessed 2024-04-18.

Picea mariana

The steely-blue leaves of a typically slender Picea mariana at Roath Park, Cardiff, UK, add to the diversity of foliage tints in this corner of the collection. October 2013. Image Owen Johnson.

A tree 20 to 30 ft (occasionally twice or thrice as) high, of close, pyramidal habit as seen in cultivation, branches densely twiggy; young shoots abundantly furnished with reddish down; terminal bud with a few downy awl-shaped scales at the base. Leaves arranged all round the twig, but thinly beneath, 1⁄4 to 5⁄8 in. long, slightly curved, quadrangular, with a bluntish, bevelled point; more or less glaucous in hue, with two to five lines of stomata on each surface. Cones egg-shaped, 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 in. long, brownish purple when young; scales rounded or somewhat bluntly triangular at the apex, and slightly jagged at the margin.

Native of N. America, where it covers an immense tract from Labrador and Alaska in the north to Virginia and Wisconsin in the south; introduced to the Fulham garden about 1700 by Bishop Compton. This is not one of the most ornamental of spruces, but is still pleasing in its dense furnishing of leaves and its large crops of rich purple young cones. It is nearly allied to P. rubens, but differs in its blue-green foliage and in the long persistence of its cones upon the branches – twenty to thirty years, according to Sargent.

Among the few specimens of the black spruce in this country are: Nymans, Sussex, 63 × 53⁄4 ft (1970), and another of about the same size; Wakehurst Place, Sussex, 53 × 4 ft (1964); Rhinefield Drive, Hants., 69 × 41⁄2 ft (1971); Caerhays Castle, Cornwall, 62 × 63⁄4 ft (1971).

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

specimens: Nymans, Sussex, 70 × 51⁄2 ft and 69 × 53⁄4 ft (1977); Rhinefield Drive, New Forest, 79 × 43⁄4 ft (1984); Endsleigh, Devon, 74 × 61⁄2 ft (1977); Caerhays, Cornwall, 62 × 63⁄4 ft (1971); Dawyck, Peebl., 66 × 41⁄2 ft (1984); Abbeyleix, Co. Laois, Eire, 69 × 53⁄4 ft (1980).

† cv. ‘Nana’. – A true dwarf, of rounded outline, with closely set, mostly radially arranged, blue-grey leaves. Considered by Humphrey Welch to be ‘one of the best conifers we have’.

Picea mariana

A branchlet of Picea mariana. Some specimens can be easily confused with Picea rubens, but this one is distinct in its straight, narrow leaves, glaucous beneath, and the glandular branchlet hairs. Dawyck Botanic Garden, UK, from seed from New Brunswick, Canada. April 2022. Image Brian Robertshaw.

Picea mariana

The branchlets of Picea mariana begin to change from greenish to cream much sooner than in Picea rubens. This is probably the most reliable diagnostic feature in early summer. Grown from seed from Prince Edward Island, Canada, at Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent, UK. July 2023. Image Brian Robertshaw.

Picea mariana

The seed cones of Picea mariana often cluster densely in the upper crown. Grown from seed from New Brunswick, Canada, at Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent, UK. April 2022. Image Brian Robertshaw.

Picea mariana

The cones of Picea mariana are often clustered close to the trunk, while in Picea rubens they tend to be borne towards the tips of the branches. Grown from seed from New Brunswick, Canada, at Westonbirt, UK. July 2023. Image Brian Robertshaw.

Picea mariana

Ripening cones of Picea mariana. The dark violet colour differs from the more greenish cones of Picea rubens. Grown from seed from New Brunswick, Canada, at Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent, UK. July 2023. Image Brian Robertshaw.

Picea mariana

The mature and dehiscent cones of Picea mariana are orbicular-ovoid in shape, with roundly triangular seed scales. Grown from seed from New Brunswick, Canada, at Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent, UK. July, 2023. Image Brian Robertshaw.

'Doumetii'

A small densely branched tree growing slowly to about 10 ft in this country. Leaves blue-green, slender, crowded, mostly under {1/2} in. long. Branchlets bright orange-brown. This variety was described by Carrière in 1855 from a plant growing at the Château de Balaine near Moulins, where there was (and still is) a fine collection of American trees planted by Aglaé Adanson, daughter of the French botanist Michel Adanson (1727–1806). The original tree was planted about 1835; when Elwes visited La Balaine early this century it was dead, but still standing and about 30 ft high.

'Ericoides'

This is a pigmy form of the black spruce, and is a rounded bush with very slender leaves never more than {3/8} in. long, almost heathlike, young shoots thin, much branched, downy the first two or three years. It has been known since the second half of the last century but is extremely rare and is only mentioned here because the earliest description of it appeared in the first edition of this work.

'Nana'

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