Picea chihuahuana is a medium-sized evergreen conifer from the mountains of northwest Mexico, growing to 25 to 35 m tall, and it is rarely grown outside its native range. It needs cool, moist conditions, which suits it to mountain-valley streamsides rather than hot, dry sites.
Family
Pinaceae (Pine family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist, especially in dry periods, without letting it become waterlogged.
Soil
Well-drained, slightly acidic to neutral, moisture-retentive loam.
Temperature
Cool temperate conditions; tolerates cold winters, but protect young trees from hot, dry summers.
How easy
Hard
Native range
Mexico (SW. Chihuahua, S. Durango)
Climate
subtropical
About
Picea chihuahuana, the Chihuahua spruce, is a medium-sized evergreen tree growing to 25–35 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 1 m. It is native to northwest Mexico, where it occurs in 25 small populations in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains in Chihuahua and Durango. It grows at moderate altitudes from 2300 to 3200 m, growing along streamsides in mountain valleys, where moisture levels in the soil are greater than the otherwise low rainfall in the area would suggest.
The bark is thin and scaly, flaking off in small circular plates 5–10 cm across. The crown is conic, with widely spaced branches with drooping branchlets. The shoots are stout, pale buff-brown, glabrous, and with prominent pulvini. The leaves are needle-like, 17–23 mm long, stout, rhombic in cross-section, bright glaucous blue-green with conspicuous lines of stomata; the tip is viciously sharp.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Picea chihuahuana by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.