Picea glauca seed
Picea glauca, the white spruce, is a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in North America, from central Alaska to as far east as the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, and south to northern Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, northwestern Pennsylvania, upstate New York, 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.
Picea glauca, commonly called white spruce,Black Hills Spruce is an extremely hardy evergreen conifer that is native to upland areas and lake/stream margins stretching from Alaska across the boreal forest of Canada to Newfoundland, dipping south to Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and New York. This tree typically grows 60-80′ tall (less frequently to 140′ tall) with a cone-shaped crown. It diminishes in size to low, shrubby forms near tree line in northern Canada. Blue-green needles (to 3/4″) on small woody pegs have sharp tips. Needles are pungently aromatic when crushed. Needles have a glaucous (white waxy coating) bloom, hence the specific epithet and common name. Branchlets do not droop. Cylindrical pale brown cones (to 2.5″ long) have flexible scales.
Genus name is reportedly derived from the Latin word pix meaning pitch in reference to the sticky resin typically found in spruce bark.