stopped me in my tracks

These blue spruce tips made me gasp today when I came upon them. The irony was that my son and I were out looking for spruce tips to gather for cooking. We were looking for black spruce in particular. But all we kept finding was white spruce and blue spruce. We had checked about thirty spruces by the time I came upon this one. And even though I had seen a dozen blue spruces with new growth tips, this one made me stop in my tracks. Not all blue spruces retain the waxy coating on the needles that makes them appear blue (although it is more common in spring and then fades all summer long). So, when I walked around this tree to the shaded lee-ward side, these blue-green tips jumped out at me as if they were holiday lights. The needles and tips on sunny wind-ward side of the tree were already faded to a dull green. What a fun find!

Blue spruce tips (Picea pungens)