Brewer Spruce Seeds 25 Count Picea breweriana Weeping Spruce Description: Large tree crowned with long, slender, horizontal branches ending in ropelike, drooping branches; trunk enlarged and buttressed at the base and tapering above. Height: 70-100' (21-30 m). Diameter: 1 1/2-3' (0.3-0.9 m). Needles: evergreen; spreading on all sides of twig; 3/4-1 (2-2.5 cm) long. Flattish; blunt-pointed, 4-6 whitish lines above, shiny dark green beneath. Bark: reddish-brown, thin, scaly. Twigs: reddish-brown, long and slender, finely hairy, rough with peglike leaf bases. Cones: 2 1/2-4"" (6-10 cm) long; cylindrical, short-stalked, dull orange-brown; cones-scales thin, rounded, not toothed; paired, brown, long-winged seeds. Habitat: High mountain ridges near timberline; with Red Fir and other conifers; seldom in pure stands. Range: Chiefly in Siskiyou Mountains of SW. Oregon and NW. California; at 3300-7500' (1006-2286 m). Discussion: The weeping habit serves to reduce breakage of branches by heavy snowfall. Rare even as a cultivated ornamental, this local species is found in five National Forests and a special preserve, the Brewer Spruce Natural Area. It is named for its discoverer, William Henry Brewer (1828-1910), a professor of agriculture at Yale University and co-author of ""Botany of California. What was the last major tree species to be discovered in the United States? It was our very own weeping, or Brewer's, spruce, Picea breweriana. A rare tree world wide, Brewer's spruce is found only in the high mountains of Southwest Oregon and Northern California. Brewer's spruce tolerates infertile soils, cold temperatures, low light and snow pressure. On better sites it can't compete with other conifers. But on difficult sites, rocky ridges with poor soil, steep north slopes with lots of snow-places other conifers don't like-it holds its own. Although its present range is restricted, it is known as a fossil from 15 million year old Miocene deposits in Northeastern Oregon. Weeping spruce refers to it pendulous, hanging branchlets, similar to the hanging branchlets of its distant cousin the Norway spruce, cultivated in Ashland's Lithia Park. There is an interesting story behind the weeping spruce's specific epithet ""breweriana"" and its other common name. Sereno Watson at Harvard University described the tree based on specimens collected on rocky ground along the trail from Happy Camp, California, to Waldo, Oregon, by the venerable Thomas Jefferson Howell in June of 1884. Howell, a self-taught Oregon botanist, made several very fruitful plant-collecting trips to Waldo in the Illinois Valley of southwest Oregon 1884, '86 and '88. He sent many specimens that were new to science to Harvard University where they were named after him by the Harvard botanists Sereno Watson and Asa Gray. But Watson named the spruce Picea breweriana not Picea howellii. Why, you ask? Because Howell already had too many plants named after him? No, it was because J.D. Whitney, Chief of the Geological Survey of California, had given William Brewer, botanist on the survey, specimens of a spruce from the Castle Crags area in California. However, there was not enough material to name. Brewer had a young assistant by the name of Sereno Watson. Are you starting to get the picture? When Howell sent his specimen with cones to Watson, Watson recognized the plant as being the same as Whitney's scrap, and proceeded to commemorate his old boss, Brewer. Maybe it should have been Picea whitneyi, but then Whitney has a mighty tall mountain named after him. ""
