This shapely, if not properly shaped, spruce doesn't seem to be consistent in its characteristics for any names I can find. I'd thought maybe Serbian Spruce, but that's supposed to have hairy shoots, which I'm not noticing in the photo, and the photo of the Serbian Spruce branches that I have shows something sparcer, more like what I was just shown for Brewer's Spruce. It's on the UBC Campus, not in the botanical garden.
A bit odd - the foliage is good for Serbian Spruce, but the cone looks to be a good centimetre longer than any Serbian Spruce cone I've ever seen before and its scale shape is perhaps very subtly different to the usual. A few hybrids involving Serbian Spruce are known (e.g. with Sitka Spruce, and Black Spruce), and I suspect this may be another though I'm not sure what with (it isn't with either of those two). Sargent's Spruce Picea brachytyla is a possibility, as is Brewer's Spruce. Can you measure the cone to get an exact length, please? Shoot pubescence - that really needs a hand lens to check fully, it may well be present, just not visible at the scale of the photo.
Good enough if I hold my same hand in that position and measure the imaginary cone? 13cm. Just a few cones were on the ground. Another I saw in worse condition was smaller.
That long, it's got to be a hybrid. My longest Serbian Spruce cone is 7.1 cm; I'd be prepared to accept a 7.5 cm specimen, but anything over 8 cm isn't going to be true Serbian (the textbook published maximum is 6.5 cm). If you can collect some cones, I'd be interested in them for my herbarium, please (the best condition ones you can find! ;-)
Otherwise first shot shows habit of many Serbian spruces and is not like that of Siskiyou spruce. The third one is unlikely to be seen outside of a few collections here.
But I'd assume they have it at UBC BG? If the seed for this tree was collected in the UBC BG, a hybrid Serbian × Sargent's could easily happen. Or a Serbian × Brewer's; this hybrid has been suspected several times in various gardens though as far as I know never yet proven.
First of all, I measured my hand incorrectly, forgetting that only three fingers were showing, so that measurement would have been only 11cm. I went back there today, and all the cones I found were considerably shorter than that, with about 8cm being the largest. So maybe really Serbian Spruce; I've included some more photos, including a close-up that maybe shows a few hairs on the bottom of the branch. I forgot about using a hand lens. Still, it's not what I think of as very hairy (Collins Tree Guide, 2006 paperback edition, page 106). I think UBC Plant Operations people ("plant" as in industrial plant) do the campus plantings and I don't believe they get any seed from UBCBG. I could be corrected on that. Michael, I only brought home one cone, and I'm assuming you don't want it now.
Thanks! I'd actually still be interested in that largest cone if possible please (as it's also the one in best condition!) - it looks quite intriguing, like Serbian but not 100% so, I still suspect it is a hybrid. In hand, I'm hopeful I'd be able to make a better guess at a potential other parent. The minimal shoot hariness is also significant now it's been confirmed in close-up.
