Picea sitchensis

Sitka spruce is a member of the pine or Pinaceae family and has a native range from the coastal areas of Alaska through to California, particularly thriving in the temperate climate and coastal rainforest along the west coast of North America, less than 80 km from the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the largest conifers, growing up to close to 100 m tall, sometimes exceeding 5 m in diameter and reaching over 700 years old.

Fine-grained Sitka spruce with its long and flexible fibres is renowned for its acoustic qualities, and for years it has been sought out for making piano sounding boards and guitar tops.

• Leaves are needle-like, spirally arranged, 20–30 mm long, flat, keeled below and sharp-pointed, although less than Engelmann spruce. Each needle is on a short peg.
• Cones are cylindrical and 5–10 cm long and 2 cm broad when closed, opening to 3 cm broad, cone scales wavy and irregularly toothed at the tips. Bracts are visible between the open scales [Engelmann spruce cones do not have visible bracts, are usually closer to 10 cm long, needles are 4-sided].
• Bark is thin and scaly, flaking off in small circular plates 5–20 cm across.

** In Asia, a species closely related to Sitka spruce is Yezo spruce (Picea jezoensis), found generally within 200 km of the Pacific Ocean in northeast Asia, from the mountains of central Japan and northern Japan (Hokkaido), and the Changbai Mountains on the China-North Korea border, and north to eastern Siberia, including the Sikhote-Alin, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin and Kamchatka. **