Not Picea spinulosa, which is much more arching/drooping and with slenderer needles white on one side. On the current pics, it is hard to say that it isn't just Picea abies, but that isn't a definite ident either. Any cones you can get a close-up pic of?
Thanks, I will have to have a really good look and see, I did have a quick look round for cones, as they are a great help, but couldnt see any. There are a couple of other different spruces quite close by, that may apear here soon, depending on my luck.
Norway spruce has large, persistent woody cones that litter the ground beneath it. The crown and foliage of the tree in question looks like Norway spruce, but...
If it hadnt been for the bark, I would have called it a Norway Spruce and though no more of it. Its bark reminded me of P. smithaina, and P. spinulosa was described in a similar way "Bark is light grey and breaks into round plates and shallow cracks." I dont know what really mature norway spruce bark looks like. The next question is what is this other apparently coneless spruce near by, the only cones i can find in the undergrowth are douglas fir cones, from the douglas fir you may just be able to see branches of in the left of the picture.
The new one also looks like Picea abies too. Norway Spruce is very variable in its bark, anything from finely flaky to scaly to fissured, and orange-red to purple-brown to grey. So not a lot of help! This page gives a good idea of the range of variation: http://www.bomengids.nl/uk/soorten/Fijnspar__Picea_abies__Norway_spruce.html Also google image search for "Picea abies" bark: http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2004-34,RNWE:en&q=%22picea%20abies%22%20bark&sa=N&tab=wi While "large, persistent woody cones that litter the ground beneath it" is often true, it is far from always so - may individuals only have cones quite infrequently (once every 5-10 years or so) and it isn't difficult to find Norway Spruces with no cones under them.
I didnt realise there was so much variation in the bark, the bark on those two trees looks so different I couldnt believe they could both be the same species. There is a norway spruce plantation of about an acre on the other side of the valley, and the bark on them looks different again (and all the same), they arent as old, but some of them are still quite substantial trees. As far as cones go, its only a very few of the trees that actually have cones on them and the ground is by no means littered with cones.
That every Norway spruce always has cones all over the ground beneath it was not the idea I was trying to put forward.
