Photographs of Red spruce (Picea rubens) needles, cones, buds, pollen, & hairy stems can help distinguish this spruce species from white & black spruce trees.

This article series provides photographs of plant parts and matching pollen from areas in the U.S., Canada, Spain, France, and Mexico, and from other countries.

We include links to detailed articles about individual pollen and plant species.

Picea Rubens - Red Spruce Pollen, Needle, Cone, Bud, Hairy Stem Photographs help Identify Red Spruce

These photos and notes help distinguish Red spruce (Picea rubens) from some other common spruce trees including black and white spruce trees.

[Click any image to see an enlarged version]

Above: sample parts collected from a Poughkeepsie NY Red Spruce to obtain pollen and to make microscopic examination of the tree and its identifying properties in May 2019.

Above: the pollen grains photographed at 400x, from Red Spruce - Picea rubens, collected from property on the Vassar College Campus, Poughkeepsie NY, May 2019 [by DF]

We have a quantity of this pollen on hand and will be glad to give modest amounts at no charge to microscopists or other researchers.

Use the page top or bottom CONTACT link.

Below: seen under the stereo microscope, the pollen producing bud from Picea Rubens; you can see some pollen grains on the needles and on the bud itself - small translucent white dots, magnified in the photo above.

Below: the small hairs on new growth stems of Red Spruce (Picea rubens) are characteristic of this spruce species.

Below: sample needles from the Red Spruce Picea rubens under the stereo microscope.

Generally all of the roughly 40 species of spruce trees produce needles that are roughly four sided (though not symmetrical) and varying in color and length.

The Red spruce needles, Picea rubens, are similar to black spruce, are dark green, but longer, ranging from about 0.5" to 0.7" in length.

For comparison, other spruce needle lengths:

Black spruce or Picea mariana needles are shorter, about 0.3-0.5 " long

White spruce or Picea glauca needle still longer, about 1"

Below: a detail of a Red spruce cone under the stereo microscope.

Earlier on this page we show Red spruce Picea rubens cones ranging in length typically from 1.3 to 2" in length.

The Picea rubens cone scales are thin, woody, and smooth as well as rounded on the margin, as you can see in my photo above.

We felled a dying Picea rubens for these photos and pollen collection in May 2019. When the tree toppled many of its cones separated easily from their branches.

(In contrast, cones on a Black spruce often remain firmly attached to the tree's branches for years.)

For comparison with other spruce tree cones

Black spruce or Picea mariana cones are ovid (rather than round) and are 0.5 to 1" in length and have scales that are brittle and are rough on their outer margin.

White spruce or Picea glauca cones are 1 to 2.5" in length and have scales that are smooth on their rounded margin or edge.

Tree Identification Guides

• Brockman, Frank C., Rebecca Merrilees (llus), Guide to Field Identification of Trees of North America, Golden Press, NY, Western Publishing Co., Racine WI, 1979. p. 38, 39
  
  This was the most-helpul guide among these three books on spruce tree speciation among black, red, and white spruce trees.
• Petrides, George A., A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs, 2d. Ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1972
• Lanzara, Paola, & Mariella Pizzetti, Guide to Trees, Stanley Schuler (U.S. Ed.), Simon & Schuster N.Y., 1978,1998

also see

• Dahlberg, Anders, Lena Jonsson, and Jan-Erik Nylund. "Species diversity and distribution of biomass above and below ground among ectomycorrhizal fungi in an old-growth Norway spruce forest in south Sweden." Canadian Journal of Botany 75, no. 8 (1997): 1323-1335.
• Khasa, P. D., and B. P. Dancik. "Rapid identification of white-Engelmann spruce species by RAPD markers." Theoretical and applied genetics 92, no. 1 (1996): 46-52.
• Pfeiffer, Antonella, Angelo M. Olivieri, and Michele Morgante. "Identification and characterization of microsatellites in Norway spruce (Picea abies K.)." Genome 40, no. 4 (1997): 411-419.

...

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Citations & References

In addition to any citations in the article above, a full list is available on request.

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