Picea obovata

Siberian spruce is a member of the pine or Pinaceae family and is native to Siberia, from the Ural Mountains east to the Magadan region and from the Arctic tree line south to the Altay Mountains in northwestern Mongolia.

It is a medium-sized evergreen tree growing to 15–35 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 1.5 m, and a conical crown with drooping branchlets.

Siberian spruce and Norway spruce (Picea abies) are very similar genetically and can be considered two closely related subspecies of P. abies. This means that the range of Picea abies (both subspecies) extends from western Europe, across the Ural Mountains, all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the largest geographic range of any of the conifers.

• Leaves are needle-like, rhombic (4 sides all equal length), 1–2 cm long, pointed; needles are on short, stout pegs (sterigmata). Leaves subtending a bud are distinctively angled out at a greater angle than the rest of the leaves (a characteracteristic shared by only two or three other spruces).
• Cones are non-fragmenting, cylindric-conic, 5–10 cm long and 1.5–2 cm broad, green or purple, maturing glossy brown 4–6 months after pollination, and have stiff, smoothly rounded scales.
• Shoots are orange-brown, with variably scattered to dense pubescence. Bark smooth and brown on young trees, turning gray-brown, peeling off in thin scales; on old trees, it is black-grey, rough and scaly.

** For more photographs, please also refer to those of the closely-related Picea abies **