The spruce (Picea) is an evergreen with short, blue-green, waxy leaves called needles. The waxy coating on the needles helps evergreen trees conserve water during the very cold winters where they live, when soil water is frozen and not available for the trees to use. The spruce is a conifer, which means that it produces seed cones instead of flowers. It grows slowly and is easily killed by fire. Back to To Plant or Not to Plant? Metric Converter | Vocabulary | Teacher Resource | Back to Top |