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| ## black spruce {#black-spruce .Title-Header}                         |
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| *Picea mariana* (Miller) B.S.P.                                       |
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| Plant Symbol = PIMA                                                   |
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Contributed by: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center

### 

##### Alternate Names  {#alternate-names .Header-3}

Bog spruce, swamp spruce, shortleaf black spruce

##### Uses {#uses .Header-3}

The primary use of black spruce wood is for pulp. Lumber is of secondary
importance because of the relatively small size of the trees. The trees
and wood also are used for fuel, Christmas trees, and other products
(beverages, medical salves, aromatic distillations). Black spruce is the
provincial tree of Newfoundland.

##### Status {#status .Header-3}

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status (e.g. threatened or endangered
species, state noxious status, and wetland indicator values).

##### Description {#description .Header-3}

*General*: Trees to 25 meters tall (often shrub-like near tree-line),
the crown narrowly conic to spire-like or "irregularly subcylindric;"
branches short and drooping, frequently layering; twigs not pendent,
slender, yellow-brown, hairy; bark gray-brown. Needles evergreen,
0.6-1.5(-2) cm long, 4-angled, stiff and blunt-tipped, waxy and pale
blue-green. Seed cones 1.5-2.5(-3.5) cm long, fusiform, purple-brown at
maturity; cone scales fan-shaped, broadest near apex, 8-12 mm long,
rigid, margin at apex irregularly toothed. Native. The common name
refers to the dark (blackish) foliage.
![](media/image2.jpeg){width="2.182638888888889in"
height="3.2333333333333334in"}

*Variation within the species*: Black spruce shows north-south clinal
variation in photoperiodism, productivity, and other traits, and
discrete variants are not recognized at present, except for one. Fernald
(1950) recognized "depressed" and "trailing" alpine forms at the rank of
*forma*, but Roland and Smith (1969) and Rouleau and Lamoureux (1992)
have treated them as var. *semiprostrata*. These occur in Keewatin,
Quebec, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia:

-   *Picea mariana* var. *mariana*

-   *Picea mariana* var. *semiprostrata* (Peck) Teeri

-   Synonym: *Picea mariana* forma *semiprostrata* (Peck) Blake

However, these are of little significance to NRCS and conservation
personnel in the United States.

Black spruce hybridizes with red spruce (*Picea rubens*) on disturbed
sites in eastern Canada and with white spruce in a few places. Reports
of natural hybrids between black spruce and white spruce apparently
remain unverified.

*Distribution*: Black spruce occurs across the northern range of North
America, from Alaska, Yukon, and British Columbia eastward to Nova
Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Québec. It also occurs in the
northeastern United States and sporadically in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
Michigan. For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile
page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.

##### Adaptation {#adaptation .Header-3}

In muskegs, bogs, bottomlands, and relatively dry peatlands; at 0-1500
meters. Black spruce usually grows on wet organic soils but productive
stands also grow over deep humus, clays, loams, sands, coarse till, and
shallow soil mantles. It is often a postfire pioneer on both uplands and
peatlands. In fire-prone areas, such as upland ridges, fire usually
results in the immediate reestablishment and eventual dominance of black
spruce, because it produces seed at an early age.

##### Establishment {#establishment .Header-3}

Black spruce may produce a few cones as early as 10 years of age, but
maximum production occurs between 100 and 200 years. Heavy seed years
occur at intervals of 2-6 years and peak crops every 4 years over most
of the range. Fires open the cones and accelerate seed release for
periods of 60 days to 2-3 years, depending on fire intensity. Viable
seed may be dispersed from a cone for up to 25 years, providing a seed
supply after fires occur.

Sphagnum mosses can provide a continuously moist seedbed for black
spruce, but growth of seedling growth may be slow here because of
inadequate nutrients. Feathermosses may provide a suitable seedbed
during wet years but may dry out before penetration by the seedling
root. Moist mineral soils usually provide good seedbeds, but exposed
mineral soil may be too waterlogged or subject to frost heaving in some
low-lying areas. Fires that completely remove the surface organic layer
usually provide good seedbeds. Seedling mortality seems to be highest on
burned duff and lowest on moss and mineral soil surfaces with adequate
moisture. Seedlings develop in as little as 10% of full light intensity,
but survival and growth are much better in the open.

Layering is an important means of reproduction in black spruce on some
sites, especially where rapidly growing mosses cover lower branches.
Such layering develops most abundantly in the more open-grown stands and
less frequently in dense stands with higher wood volume. It also is
common at tree line, probably as a result of depression of the lower
branches by snow, and accounts for the presence of \"candelabrum\"
spruce, a circular clump originating from one individual with the
tallest tree in the center.

The average maximum age for black spruce is about 200 years, but ages up
to 300 years have been reported.

##### Management {#management .Header-3}

Black spruce grows more slowly than many associated trees and shrubs,
and mature trees in spruce-fir stands apparently respond better to
release than white spruce and subalpine fir. Many intermediate and
suppressed black spruce in swamp stands, however, die after heavy
cutting

Clearcutting in strips or patches is generally considered to be the best
silvicultural system for managing black spruce. Satisfactory
reestablishment after clearcutting requires an adequate seed source and
often some kind of site preparation. Uneven-aged or all-aged management
is best applied on poor sites where stands are windfirm and have
abundant layering.

Eastern dwarf-mistletoe causes serious problems for black spruce in the
Lake States and eastern Canada. The spruce budworm and various other
insects are damaging. Black spruce is easily killed by both ground and
crown fires. Peatland stands have a low risk except during very dry
periods

### Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil
Conservation Service) office for more information. Look in the phone
book under "United States Government." The Natural Resources
Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading "Department of
Agriculture."

##### References {#references .Header-3}

Fernald, M.L. 1950. *Gray's manual of botany*. Ed. 8. American Book Co.,
New York.

Little, E.L., Jr. and S.S. Pauley. 1958. A natural hybrid between black
and white spruce in Minnesota. Amer. Midl. *Naturalist* 60:202-211.

Morgenstern, E.K. and J.L. Farrar. 1964. *Introgressive hybridization in
red spruce and black spruce*. Univ. Toronto, Fac. Forest., Techn. Rep.
4.

Roland, A.E. and E.C. Smith. 1969. *The flora of Nova Scotia*. Nova
Scotia Museum, Halifax.

Rouleau, E. and G. Lamoureux 1992. *Atlas of the vascular plants of the
island of Newfoundland and the islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon*.
Groupe Fleurbec, St. Henri de Levis, Quebec.

Sytsma, K.J. 2004. *Wisconsin State Herbarium*.
(http://www.botany.wisc.edu/wisflora/scripts/detail.asp?SpCode=PICMAR,
20 December 2004). University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Taylor, R.J. 1993. *Picea*. Pp. 369-373 in: Flora of North America,
north of Mexico. vol. 2. Oxford Univ. Press, New York.

Teeri, J.A. 1969. The phytogeography of subalpine black spruce in New
England. *Rhodora* 71:1-6.

Viereck, L.A. and W.F. Johnston 1990. *Picea mariana*. Pp. 227-237 in:
R.M. Burns and B.H. Honkala Silvics of North America. vol 1*.* USDA
Forest Service Agric. Handbook 654, Washington, D.C.

##### Prepared By:  {#prepared-by .Header-3}

*Guy Nesom*

Formerly BONAP, North Carolina Botanical Garden

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

##### Species Coordinator:  {#species-coordinator .Header-3}

##### *Gerald Guala* {#gerald-guala .Header-3}

##### USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana {#usda-nrcs-national-plant-data-center-baton-rouge-louisiana .Header-3}

##### Edited: 20Dec2004 rln; 060802 jsp {#edited-20dec2004-rln-060802-jsp .Header-4}

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

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*To file a complaint of discrimination write USDA, Director, Office of
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