Farrer's Spruce

Trees to 35 m tall; bark grayish, scaly; crown open, broadly conical; branches spreading or slightly descending, slender; branchlets steeply descending, ultimate ones strongly pendulous; 1st- and 2nd-year branchlets olive brown to pale orange-brown, initially pubescent, later glabrescent. Leaves directed forward (but not appressed) on upper side of branchlets, slightly directed forward on lower side, blue-green with slight bloom, (1.5-)1.8-2.3(-2.5) cm, flattened, parallel sided for most of length, covered with bright snow-white epicuticular wax adaxially, stomatal lines 5 or 6 in each of 2 bands adaxially, apex abruptly acute, somewhat pungent. Pollen cones conical-cylindric, 2-2.5 cm × ca. 3 mm. Seed cones sessile or very shortly pedunculate (peduncle ca. 0.5 cm), mid brown, ellipsoid-cylindric, (6-)7-9.5(-10) × 3-4 cm when open. Seed scales at middle of cones obovate, convex, 0.8-1.2 × 1-1.6 cm, distal margin ± incurved, rounded. Seeds ca. 1.6 × 0.5 cm including wing; wing pale brown, margin erose.

W Yunnan (Nu Jiang valley) [Myanmar (Fen-Shui-Ling valley)]

Small, pure stands in usually open forests in cool, wet limestone mountains with heavy monsoon rains (in Myanmar); 2400-2700 m.

Picea farreri is a species of conifer in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is known by the common name Farrer's spruce. It is native to China, where it is known only from Yunnan, and to Myanmar.

This tree can reach 35 meters tall. It grows on limestone soils in cool, wet mountainous habitat.

Picea farreri is named after the plant collector Reginald Farrer who travelled extensively in China and what was then Burma.