Picea retroflexa (Brush Needle Spruce)

Picea retroflexa (Brush Needle Spruce) : Trees with a single straight, round trunk and a conical to columnar crown with numerous short, straight, horizontal main branches that reach a height of 145 feet. The bark is tough and scaly, with tiny flaking plates. Twigs are short, thick, light or orange-brown, ridged and grooved, and have prominent pulvini. Foliage buds are broad-conical, resinous, and tightly enclosed by curved leaves, with keeled, appressed, orange-brown bud scales that remain at the base of the shoot for several years. Leaves are light to glaucous green, radially spreading, curved forward, linear, quadrangular with prominent ribs, apex sharply pointed, with stomata in paired bands of 2-3 lines on upper surfaces and 4-6 lines on lower surfaces, with stomata in paired bands of 2-3 lines on upper surfaces and 4-6 lines on lower surfaces.