Picea glauca white spruce

Inventories of Stanford conifers in 1909 and 1913 listed six species of spruce and nine species of fir (Abies). By 2004, the numbers had dwindled to four species of each. P. glauca is one of several that prefer very cold winters; perhaps the 40-foot specimen that once stood near the current site of the Biology Greenhouses did not like our mild climate. Two nearly 5-foot examples of P. glauca var. albertiana ‘Conica’, dwarf Alberta spruce, were in the lawns at the Fire Station on Serra Street, one on each side of the driveway. They have been removed, as has a bushy specimen of what may be a different variety on Galvez Mall east of Green Library near the Ceiba speciosa there.

Name derivation: Picea – Latin name for pitch-pine, derived from pix (pitch); glauca – glaucus, i.e, waxy, bluish (the leaves).