Picea jezoensis

Yezo spruce, or Ezo spruce is a member of the pine or Pinaceae family and is native to 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. It can reach up to 50 m tall.

It is found in cold but humid temperate rain forests, mostly less than 200 km from the Pacific Ocean, similar to its related species, Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) which is found along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia in North America.

• The crown is broadly conic. The shoots are pale buff-brown, glabrous (hairless) but with prominent sterigmata (needle stems).
• The leaves are needle-like, flat cross-section, 15–20 mm long, 2 mm across, dark green above with no stomata, and blue-white to white below with two dense bands of stomata.
• The cones are pendulous, non-fragmenting, slender cylindrical, 4–7 cm long and 2 cm across when closed, opening to 3 cm across. They have thin, flexible scales 12–18 mm long. They are green or reddish, maturing pale brown 5–6 months after pollination. The seeds are black, 3 mm long, with a slender, 6–8 mm long pale brown wing.
• The bark is thin, becoming fissured in old trees and peeling off in thin scales.