''Picea meyeri'' (Meyer's spruce; ) is a species of spruce native to

Nei Mongol Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

in the northeast to Gansu in the southwest and also inhabiting Shanxi,

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

and

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...

. It is a medium-sized

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

growing to 30 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 0.8 m. The shoots are yellowish-brown, glabrous or with scattered pubescence. The leaves are needle-like, 13–25 mm long, rhombic in cross-section, bluish-green with conspicuous stomatal lines. The

cones A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...

are cylindric, 7–11 cm long and 3 cm broad, maturing pale brown 5–7 months after pollination, and have stiff, smoothly rounded scales. It is closely related to the dragon spruce from western China. It is occasionally planted as an ornamental tree; its popularity is increasing in the

eastern United States The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...

, where it is being used to replace

Blue Spruce The blue spruce (''Picea pungens''), also commonly known as green spruce, Colorado spruce, or Colorado blue spruce, is a species of spruce tree. It is native to North America, and is found in USDA growing zones 1 through 7. It is found naturall ...

, which is more disease-prone in the humid climate there. The wood is similar to that of other spruces, but the species is too rare to be of economic value.

References

External links

Gymnosperm Database: ''Picea meyeri''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2636528 meyeri Plants described in 1914 Trees of China Endemic flora of China