If firs are flat and friendly, spruces are spiky. Spruce needles are attached firmly to the twig and stick out in all directions, like a bottle brush. They can make beautiful Christmas trees, but some, like the non-native Colorado Blue Spruce, are so sharp you run a serious risk of skewering your fingers when attaching lights. Norway Spruce, which are not native here but are widely planted in windbreaks, are the most widely sold Christmas tree in Britain, and are used here, as well. Black Spruce, the other native Minnesota spruce, usually looks a bit thin and scraggly, and is often found growing in bogs and swamps.
Firs are flat and friendly, spruces are spiky, and pines come in packets.
The needles do, that is. Pines are the evergreens with the longest needles, and they are attached to the twig in packets or groups called fascicles. The number of needles in a group varies by species. Pine, the Minnesota state tree, have two needles per fascicle, but so do some non-native pines like Scotch and Ponderosa. White Pine, which was the resource responsible for the northern Minnesota logging boom of the last century, has five soft, flexible needles per fascicle.