Belfast Botanic Gardens has a young specimen of this most elegant of spruces planted near the statue of Kelvin at the Stranmillis Road entrance. This is a rare species in the wild being confined to a small area in Western USA, but is now widely planted in gardens and tree collections. Discovered in 1897, it received an Award of Merit from the RHS in 1958 and an Award of Garden Merit in 1984. The Belfast tree is now producing abundant male cones in spring but is probably still too young to produce the characteristic elongated female (seed) cones.

Photos taken in Belfast Botanic Gardens in 2009. Copyright: Friends of Belfast Botanic Gardens.