Red spruce (Picea rubens): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Picea rubens Sarg., pine family
Other names	Yellow spruce, West Virginia spruce, eastern spruce and he-balsam (Silvics)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Canada, in the lower 48 states and on Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
Mature size, Silvics	30 to 61 cm (12 to 24 in) in diameter and 18 to 23 m (60 to 75 ft) tall in the Northeast, up to 35 m (115 ft) in the Appalachian Mountains; the largest living tree listed is 133 cm (52.5 in) across and 33.5 m (110 ft) tall in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Lifespan, Silvics	Maximum age about 400 years
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	34 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range and sites

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, volume 1, 1990) calls red spruce one of the more important conifers in the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. It records a range from the Maritime Provinces west to Maine, southern Quebec and southeastern Ontario, and south into central New York, eastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey and Massachusetts. The range continues south along the Appalachians through extreme western Maryland and eastern West Virginia to Virginia, western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, with discontinuous stands in Ontario's Haliburton, Algonquin Park and Parry Sound areas. The handbook says the tree is found predominantly on shallow till soils and will grow on many sites unfavourable for other species, such as thin soils, steep rocky slopes and wet bottomland, though poor aeration limits growth on poorly drained soils.

Cones and growth

Silvics describes red spruce as monoecious, with male and female flowers opening in May on different branches of the same tree, male flowers bright red and female flowers erect and bright green tinged with purple. Cones are 3 to 4 cm (1.3 to 1.5 in) long, light reddish brown, and mature from about mid-September to early October of the autumn after flowering. Good seed crops occur every 3 to 8 years with light crops between. The handbook says growth is strongly influenced by light: understory trees no more than 1.2 or 1.5 m (4 to 5 ft) tall may be more than 50 years old, while trees of the same age in the open may be approaching small sawtimber size.

Roots

The handbook groups spruce and fir as shallow-rooted, and lists the shallow root system, thin bark and flammable needles among the reasons trees of all ages are very susceptible to fire damage.

Wood

Silvics says the wood of red, white and black spruce cannot be distinguished with certainty by either gross characteristics or minute anatomy and that all three are usually marketed as eastern spruce. The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) agrees that the three species have about the same properties and are not distinguished from each other in commerce. It describes the wood as light in colour with little difference between heartwood and sapwood, easily dried and stable after drying, moderately lightweight, easily worked, and moderately strong, stiff, tough and hard. It says the greatest use of eastern spruce is pulpwood, with lumber used for framing, general millwork, boxes, crates and piano sounding boards. Silvics adds that red spruce is the preferred wood for piano sounding boards, guitars, mandolins, organ pipes and violin bellies, and that spruce gum from trunk wounds once supported a chewing-gum industry in Maine.

Wood Handbook Table 5-3b	Specific gravity	Modulus of rupture (lbf per square inch)	Side hardness (lbf)
Green	0.37	6,000	340
At 12% moisture content	0.40	10,800	530

The Wood Handbook states that specific gravity is based on oven-dry weight and the volume when green or at 12% moisture content. The green weight of the wood without bark is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Pests and damage the handbook names

Silvics (1990) names these agents by the names it used.

Spruce budworm. Choristoneura fumiferana, called the most important insect enemy. The handbook says red spruce is much less vulnerable than balsam fir or white spruce, largely because of later bud flushing in spring, but that much damage and mortality occur in stands containing large quantities of mature balsam fir.
Fire and clearcutting. The acreage of red spruce originally present in the southern Appalachians has been reduced to a fraction of what it once was by fire and clearcutting.
Air pollution. The handbook says interaction among insect and disease factors and air pollutants, or pollutants acting alone, are at the root of the problem it discusses, naming sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds as the pollutants of primary concern. It says growth decline and mortality in low-elevation northern New England stands appear within normal ranges.
Dwarf mistletoe. Eastern dwarf mistletoe, Arceuthobium pusillum, occasionally infects red spruce and causes growth reduction, tree mortality and degraded wood quality.
Animals. Mice and voles eat and store spruce seed in preference to fir seed, and birds, porcupines, bears, deer, sapsuckers and red squirrels cause some injury.

The guide on reporting a pest in the United States and the Canada reporting page give the offices that take sightings of regulated pests. Who may apply pesticides is in pesticide licences by country.