Black Spruce
Picea mariana

(c) Douglas Goldman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Douglas Goldman
Growing it
| When | Flowers May to June |
|---|---|
| Type | tree |
| Sun | Full sun, partial shade |
| Water | Medium, high |
| Soil | pH 4–6 |
| Hardiness | zone 1–6 |
| Mature height | 15 m |
| Mature spread | 4.5 m |
| Spacing | 3 m |
| Years to maturity | 25 |
| Bloom | May–Jun |
| In bloom | May June |
| Native to | AB, SK |
needles about 1.2 cm long; a single straight leader
Where it has been recorded
Which ecoregions the records fall in
- Mid-Boreal Uplands central AB / SK: 91 records, high confidence
- Western Alberta Upland central AB: 62 records, high confidence
- Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 41 records, high confidence
- Boreal Transition central AB / SK: 37 records, high confidence
- Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 23 records, high confidence
- Peace Lowland north AB: 14 records, medium confidence
- Wabasca Lowland north AB: 9 records, medium confidence
- Churchill River Upland north SK: 7 records, low confidence
- Hay River Lowland north AB: 6 records, low confidence
- Slave River Lowland north AB: 6 records, low confidence
- Tazin Lake Upland north AB / SK: 4 records, low confidence
- Athabasca Plain north AB / SK: 3 records, low confidence
- Northern Alberta Uplands north AB: 3 records, low confidence
- Western Boreal central AB: 3 records, low confidence
These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.
See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.
Documented animals
1 documented relationships.
caterpillar host for
- Urocerus flavicornis Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Also worth knowing
Safety
Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety
Buying it
About $60–$150 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (large specimen tree); AB retail as of 2026