| Family | Scientific Name | Common Name | Habitat | Distribution | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinaceae | Picea abies | Norway Spruce | Fairly commonly planted in the montane and northern parts of our area as a street or yard tree, also persisting and escaping from forestry plantations at moderate or high elevations, notably in e. WV, Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Kephart Prong), Mount Mitchell State Park, and the Biltmore Estate. | Native of n. Europe. |  |
| Pinaceae | Picea glauca | White Spruce | Grown in forestry plantations and persistent from horticultural and silvicultural use. | Native of n. North America, where probably only truly native to cooler temperate regions and otherwise introduced in its more southerly occurrences. |  |
| Pinaceae | Picea mariana | Black Spruce, Lash-horn | Swamps and other acidic wetlands. | NL (Newfoundland, Labrador), NU, NT, YT, and AK south to n. NJ, s. PA, s. MI, ne. IL, MN, and BC. |  |
| Pinaceae | Picea orientalis | Caucasian Spruce | Weakly naturalized near horticultural plantings in a NJ State Natural Area. | Native of the Caucasus region. Reported as seeding down from horticultural use by Schmidt (2023). | |
| Pinaceae | Picea pungens | Blue Spruce, Colorado Blue Spruce | Forestry plantations, also persistent or weakly spreading from horticultural use. | Native of the Rocky Mountains. Reported for MD by Kartesz (2022) but excluded by Knapp (pers.comm., 2023). |  |
| Pinaceae | Picea rubens | Red Spruce, He Balsam | Common to dominant in spruce and spruce-fir forests at high elevations, scattered in northern hardwood forests, heath balds, boulderfield forests, ridges, and rarely coves, also in bogs or swampy forests at lower elevations (in NC not below 1000 m), ranging in moisture tolerance from dry ridges (though these are often fog-bathed) to saturated peats, and sometimes planted and naturalized. Picea rubens appears as scattered individuals ("natural waifs") at lower elevations than it is usually found; these seem to reflect sporadic seeding and short term survival and growth from some natural means. | NS and NB south (interruptedly) to w. NC and e. TN. A single tree in the Mountains of SC is presumably a "natural waif" (Bradley et al. [in prep.]). Also planted and persistent or possibly naturalizing on Brasstown Bald, Rabun County, GA (M. Medley, pers.comm. 2022). |  |
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