Tree to 30-40 m tall. Shoots covered with rusty brown hair. Buds dark brown, strongly resinous. Leaves with bases appressed, those below widely spreading, as little as 10 mm long on the sides of the shoot but up to 35 mm long on top, about 2 mm wide, with white bands on all surfaces and a groove running along all or part of the length, tips rounded or rarely notched. Cones 15-25 cm long, 5-7 cm wide; bracts projected, reflexed.
Known largely through the blue form, f. glauca (Ravens) Rehder, which will grow true from seed; it grows naturally at alt. 800-1600 m in the mountains of Oregon and California.
USA.
Rusty hairs on new shoots; buds more or less obscured by the leaves; leaves blue and grooved on upper surface, pressed to stem at base before spreading, white bands similar on both surfaces.
NSW: Batlow (Pilot Hill Arboretum). VIC: Dandenongs ('Pirianda'); Mt Macedon ('Duneira').
Source: (1995). Pinaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 1, Ferns, conifers & their allies. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
('Glauca Prostrata') propagated from normal tree; low-growing, bushy, with bluish leaves. The name 'Glauca Prostrata' now acts as a group name for low, spreading plants propagated from side shoots.