Virginia Tech Dendrology

Oriental spruce Pinaceae Picea orientalis (L.) Link symbol: --
Leaf: Evergreen, four-sided needles 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, emerald green with blue-white lines of stomata, shiny and tending to curve upwards, blunt tipped and four sided. Each needle borne on a raised, woody peg (sterigma).
Flower: Species is monoecious; males cylindrical and reddish; females purplish green, spring.
Fruit: Chestnut brown cone, 2 to 4 inches long, cone scale margins entire; seed disseminated in the fall and cones tend to drop their first winter.
Twig: Orangish brown, finely hairy (may need a hand lens). As with all spruces, needleless twigs covered by short sterigmata (short pegs).
Bark: Grayish brown on surface, more reddish brown beneath with irregular, fine flaky patches, becoming irregularly ridged and furrowed.
Form: A medium to large tree that commonly grows to 50 feet in the landscape, with a dense narrowly conical form, and horizontal to upward sweeping branches that have drooping lateral branches.
Looks like: Norway spruce - red spruce - Serbian spruce - black spruce

Additional Range Information: Picea orientalis is planted in the USDA hardiness zones shown above and is not known to widely escape cultivaton. Download the full-size PDF map.
External Links: Horticulture Information
All material © 2021 Virginia Tech Dept. of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation; Photos and text by: John Seiler, Edward Jensen, Alex Niemiera, and John Peterson; Silvics reprinted from Ag Handbook 654; range map source information