Engelmann Spruce is the 2nd type of spruce native to the NW. The Gardens host 2 hemlock, 1 larch 3 juniper, 2 cedar, 4 true fir, 1 yew, 1 Douglas Fir, 4 pine. Can you identify them? Think of native trees like a high school with 169 students in a Senior Class and ~20 students in each classroom: there is a classroom of conifers (20), broadleaved trees (21), except for willows (18), shrubs (35), ground covers (24), ferns (16), 19 roses and berries, and butterflies (16). If you wish to know the names in a Junior Class of 168 students, you’d memorize our native birds! “Learning” our native conifers is fun and easily done; much like taking time to “smell the flowers.”

Needles of the Engelmann Spruce are scattered over and around each twig with pointed tips; they are not as stiff and sharp as the Sitka Spruce’s (next to Kiosk 8). Slow growing, it is found in damp, often sandy stream bottoms in mountainous areas; rare here, like the rarer Subalpine Fir and Whitebark Pine that you will also see in the Gardens. Engelmann Spruce, also called White Spruce; a conifer tree and a member of the Pinaceae Family, it grows by Kiosk 09. Pilchuck Learning Center’s sponsored Western Washington State University SAM Project extinction possibility is slight; abundant, extinction probability is slight, <.0001%. It, like its Sitka cousin (to be covered in a separate lesson), show the ability to migrate fairly easily, now showing itself in northern tundra regions as described in the URL below.

http://naeb.brit.org/uses/search/?string=Rubus+ursinus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picea_engelmannii
https://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Kiosk-09.pdf
https://burkeherbarium.org/imagecollection/taxon.php?Taxon=Picea%20engelmannii
https://www.burkemuseum.org/collections-and-research/biology/plants-and-fungi/collections-database/results.php?Genus=Picea&Species=engelmannii

Approximately how many native plants are there in the Cascadia Floristic Region stretching from San Francisco to Alaska west of the mountain crests?

900
9,000
90,000

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