Conifers are among the oldest, tallest, most massive, and longest-lived organisms on Earth. They dominated the planet’s forests long before flowering plants evolved, and today they still cover more land area than any other group of trees — forming the vast boreal forests of North America, Russia, and Scandinavia, the great temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, and the pine savannas and cedar woodlands of warmer regions.
Conifers are defined by their needle-like or scale-like leaves and their seed-bearing cones, and they include the world’s tallest tree (coast redwood), the most massive (giant sequoia), the oldest (bristlecone pine), and some of the most architecturally dramatic trees in any landscape. The 40 conifers below represent the breadth, beauty, and extraordinary diversity of this ancient and irreplaceable group.
Types of Coniferous Trees
Eastern White Pine
Eastern white pine is the tallest native tree in eastern North America, a graceful, fast-growing pine with long, soft, blue-green needles in bundles of five — the only eastern pine with five needles per bundle — and slender, curved, resinous cones six to eight inches long. Young trees are broadly pyramidal, while mature specimens develop a broad, irregular, wind-sculpted crown of great character and beauty. It is the defining tree of the northeastern forests from Newfoundland to Georgia and west to Manitoba, thriving in sandy, well-drained soils and full sun. Hardy to zone 3, it is one of the finest large landscape pines for eastern North American gardens.
Western White Pine
Western white pine is a tall, straight, narrowly columnar pine of the mountain forests of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains, producing long, slender, flexible, blue-green needles in bundles of five and elegantly long, cylindrical, slightly curved cones up to 12 inches in length. It grows in mixed conifer forests with ponderosa pine, western larch, and Douglas fir, typically at mid-elevations. The trunk is straight and clean, with smooth, gray bark on young trees that develops into small, rectangular, grayish-purple plates with age. It is a stately, refined pine with a more slender and formal habit than most other five-needle pines.
Ponderosa Pine
Ponderosa pine is one of the most widespread and recognizable trees in the American West, covering vast areas of mountain foothills and plateaus from British Columbia to Mexico. It is identified by its very long needles — typically in bundles of three, measuring five to ten inches — its large, egg-shaped cones with prickly scales, and its spectacularly beautiful bark on mature trees: broad, flat, orange-yellow to cinnamon-red plates separated by dark furrows, which emit a distinctive vanilla or butterscotch fragrance on warm days. It forms a tall, open-crowned tree of great strength and character and is one of the most drought-tolerant of all western pines.
Longleaf Pine
Longleaf pine is one of the most ecologically important and historically significant trees in North America, once dominating a vast belt of fire-maintained savanna and woodland across the southeastern coastal plain from Virginia to Texas. It is immediately identified by its extraordinarily long needles — bundled in threes and measuring 12 to 18 inches — among the longest needles of any pine in the world. Young trees spend several years in a “grass stage,” appearing as a tuft of needles at ground level while growing a deep taproot, before shooting upward rapidly. The cones are large, heavy, and impressive. Longleaf pine is a keystone species supporting hundreds of plants and animals.
Scots Pine
Scots pine is one of the most widely distributed trees in the world, native from Scotland and western Europe across Russia to the Pacific coast, and one of only three native conifers in the British Isles. It is identified by its distinctive two-toned appearance: the lower trunk and major branches are covered in rough, grayish-brown, deeply furrowed bark, while the upper crown displays smooth, glowing, warm orange to salmon-pink bark that is unique and immediately recognizable. The needles are in pairs, blue-green to gray-green, and twisted; the cones are small and gray-brown. Hardy to zone 2, it is a supremely adaptable, cold-tolerant pine with great ornamental character.
Japanese Black Pine
Japanese black pine is a bold, rugged, salt-tolerant coastal pine from Japan, forming a broad, irregular, often dramatically windswept crown with dark, lustrous, stiff needles in pairs and attractive, furrowed, gray-black bark that gives the tree its name. It is supremely tolerant of salt spray, sandy soils, and coastal exposure, making it one of the most valuable large trees for coastal landscapes. In Japan it holds immense cultural importance as a primary subject for bonsai, where centuries-old specimens trained into spectacular, cloud-pruned forms are among the most venerated living artworks in Japanese culture.
Shore Pine
Shore pine is a compact, rugged, often windswept coastal pine of the Pacific Northwest, growing naturally on exposed headlands, coastal bogs, and rocky shorelines from Alaska to California. It is a variety of lodgepole pine adapted specifically to coastal conditions, forming a dense, dark, often twisted or irregular crown of deep green, paired needles. Where it grows inland it becomes the narrow, spire-shaped lodgepole pine of the mountain forests, but in coastal form it remains compact and characterful. It is one of the most cold-hardy and storm-tolerant of all coastal trees.
Lodgepole Pine
Lodgepole pine is one of the most ecologically fascinating trees in North America, producing serotinous cones — cones sealed with resin that remain closed on the tree for years and require the intense heat of a wildfire to open and release their seeds. This remarkable fire-adaptation strategy means that lodgepole pine is perfectly designed to recolonize burned forest landscapes, and vast, even-aged stands spring up rapidly after fires. It forms a tall, narrow, spire-like tree in mountain forests from the Yukon to California, historically used by Native Americans as poles for their lodges — hence the common name.
Jack Pine
Jack pine is a tough, scrappy, cold-hardy pine of the boreal forest, native to the sandy, nutrient-poor soils and rocky outcrops of northern North America from Nova Scotia to the Northwest Territories. Like lodgepole pine, it produces serotinous or semi-serotinous cones that are often held on the tree for years, opened by fire to regenerate vast tracts of burned forest. It is a small to medium, somewhat irregular tree with short, twisted, paired needles and curved, asymmetric cones that point forward along the branch. It is the primary nesting habitat of the endangered Kirtland’s warbler, which nests only in young jack pine stands.
Norway Spruce
Norway spruce is the archetypal Christmas tree — a tall, broadly pyramidal, dark green spruce with sharply pointed, stiff needles and the largest cones of any spruce, often reaching six to eight inches long. Native to the mountains of Europe from the Alps and Carpathians to Scandinavia, it is one of the most widely planted forestry and ornamental conifers in the temperate world. The gracefully pendulous secondary branchlets on mature trees give it an elegant, curtain-like quality. Hardy to zone 2, it is extremely cold-tolerant, fast-growing, and adaptable to a wide range of soils, though it performs best in cool, moist climates.
Colorado Blue Spruce
Colorado blue spruce is arguably the most popular ornamental conifer in North American gardens, prized above all for its striking, intensely silvery-blue to steel-blue needle color — the most vivid blue of any commonly grown conifer. It forms a dense, rigidly symmetrical, broadly conical tree with stiff, sharply pointed needles and is reliably hardy to zone 2. The blue color is caused by a waxy, powdery coating on the needles. Fat Albert, Hoopsii, and Koster are among the most intensely blue-colored cultivars. It is a supremely architectural tree, providing a bold, permanent, year-round color statement in the landscape.
Sitka Spruce
Sitka spruce is the largest spruce in the world and the fifth-tallest tree species on Earth, growing to over 300 feet in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest coast from Alaska to northern California. It is identified by its sharply prickly, stiff, blue-green needles, its scaly, purplish-gray bark, and its large size. The wood is extraordinarily strong relative to its weight — among the highest strength-to-weight ratios of any wood — and is prized for aircraft construction, ship building, and the making of musical instrument soundboards. Vast groves of Sitka spruce in the coastal fog belt are among the most awe-inspiring forests on the continent.
White Spruce
White spruce is a primary boreal forest tree of North America, forming vast stands across the continent from Labrador to Alaska at the northern limits of the tree line. It is a medium-to-large, narrowly conical to spire-shaped tree with dense, blue-green needles that emit a pungent, skunky odor when crushed — a reliable identification feature. Hardy to zone 2 and sometimes zone 1, it is one of the most cold-tolerant spruces. The Densata form — Black Hills spruce — is a particularly slow-growing, dense, compact selection widely used in shelter belts and landscape plantings across the northern Great Plains.
Engelmann Spruce
Engelmann spruce is the spruce of the high Rocky Mountains, forming dense, narrow, spire-like trees in the subalpine zone from British Columbia and Alberta south to New Mexico and Arizona. The needles are soft and flexible compared to many other spruces — unusual in a group known for sharply prickly foliage — and are blue-green to silvery-blue in color. It grows in pure stands or with subalpine fir near the timberline, often forming the last trees before the alpine tundra begins. It is extremely cold-hardy and wind-resistant and provides the defining vertical accent of the high mountain landscape.
Douglas Fir
Despite its common name, Douglas fir is not a true fir — it belongs to its own separate genus and has no close relatives. It is one of the most important timber trees in the world and forms the backbone of the great temperate rainforests and mountain forests of the Pacific Northwest. On productive coastal sites it grows to over 300 feet, exceeded in height only by coast redwood. It is identified by its soft, flat, blue-green needles, its distinctive three-pronged bracts protruding from the scales of its egg-shaped cones — unique among all conifers — and its enormously thick, deeply furrowed, corky bark on old trees that provides extraordinary fire resistance.
Coast Redwood
Coast redwood is the tallest living organism on Earth, with the tallest known individual — Hyperion, growing in a remote section of Redwood National Park in California — measuring over 380 feet. It forms dense, fog-dripping forests along a narrow coastal strip in northern California and a small part of southern Oregon, where summer fog provides the moisture essential to its survival. It grows faster than any other conifer and has remarkably thick, spongy, tannin-rich, fire-resistant, reddish-brown bark. The foliage is flat, soft, and deep green above with two white stomatal bands below. Despite its enormous size in its native habitat, coast redwood grows rapidly and makes a magnificent landscape tree in suitable climates.
Giant Sequoia
Giant sequoia is the most massive living organism on Earth by volume — a single tree, the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park, contains enough wood to build approximately 40 five-room houses. It grows on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California in a series of isolated groves between 4,000 and 8,000 feet elevation. The trunk is staggeringly massive — up to 36 feet in diameter — covered in deeply furrowed, spongy, cinnamon-red to orange-brown bark two feet thick. The foliage is scale-like and blue-green, and the cones are surprisingly small — egg-shaped, about two to three inches long — relative to the tree’s monumental scale. Individual trees can live over 3,000 years.
Western Red Cedar
Western red cedar is one of the most important and culturally significant trees of the Pacific Northwest, a towering tree of old-growth rainforests forming a massive, buttressed trunk covered in shaggy, fibrous, reddish-brown bark and topped with drooping, fern-like sprays of flat, scale-like, aromatic foliage. It is not a true cedar but a member of the cypress family. Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast relied on it for virtually every material need — canoes, totem poles, longhouses, clothing, and rope — and called it the “tree of life.” The wood is extraordinarily rot-resistant, lightweight, and fragrant, and is still prized for outdoor construction, shingles, and guitar tops.
Eastern Red Cedar
Eastern red cedar is the most widely distributed native conifer in eastern North America, a tough, adaptable, aromatic small to medium tree that colonizes old fields, roadsides, limestone glades, and disturbed sites from the Atlantic coast to the Great Plains. It belongs to the juniper family rather than true cedars. The scale-like foliage is deep green in summer, often turning purplish-bronze in winter cold. Female trees produce abundant, waxy, blue-gray, berry-like cones that cedar waxwings and many other birds rely on as a winter food source. The aromatic, moth-repellent heartwood is the traditional material for cedar chests and closets.
Atlas Cedar
Atlas cedar is a magnificent, large, broadly spreading conifer from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria, producing stiff, short, silvery blue-green to gray-green needles in dense, brush-like whorls on the branches and large, barrel-shaped, upright cones that disintegrate on the tree at maturity. As a young tree it is broadly conical with a notably irregular leader; with age it develops the broad, flat-topped, layered, spreading crown of a great landscape specimen. The blue-needled cultivar Glauca is one of the most dramatic and architectural of all large ornamental conifers. Hardy to zone 6, it is a long-lived, low-maintenance tree of exceptional stature and beauty.
Deodar Cedar
Deodar cedar is the most graceful of all the true cedars, a large, broadly conical, somewhat weeping tree from the western Himalayas with soft, pendulous, light blue-green to silver-gray needles and an elegantly drooping leader that gives the young tree an almost tropical, palm-like quality. The name deodar derives from the Sanskrit word meaning “timber of the gods,” reflecting its sacred status in Hindu culture. In its native Himalayan forests it grows to over 200 feet. Hardy to zone 7 in well-drained conditions, it is a superb large specimen tree for warm-temperate climates and is widely planted in parks and large gardens throughout the American South and West.
Lebanon Cedar
Lebanon cedar is one of the most historically and culturally significant trees in the world — the cedar of the Bible, used by Solomon to build the Temple in Jerusalem, by the Phoenicians to construct their trading fleets, and appearing on the national flag of Lebanon. It is a large, broadly spreading tree with a massive trunk and a distinctive, flat-topped, table-like crown composed of sweeping, horizontal branch layers. The dark green, short, stiff needles are borne in dense rosettes, and the large, barrel-shaped, upright cones take two to three years to mature. A mature Lebanon cedar is one of the most structurally imposing and historically evocative trees in cultivation.
Western Hemlock
Western hemlock is the state tree of Washington and one of the most graceful conifers of the Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest, identified immediately by its delicately drooping leader tip — a characteristic that distinguishes it from all other conifers. The flat, soft, dark glossy-green needles vary in length and are arranged in two rows, giving the foliage a distinctively feathery, lacy texture. Small, egg-shaped cones hang from the branch tips. It grows in dense, moist, shaded forests where it is the most shade-tolerant of all the large western conifers, capable of regenerating and growing vigorously in the deep shadow of the forest floor.
Eastern Hemlock
Eastern hemlock is a graceful, long-lived native conifer of the eastern United States and Canada, forming dense, dark, shade-casting forests in cool, moist ravines and mountain slopes. It is identified by its small, flat, rounded-tipped, dark green needles with two white stripes below, arranged in flat, feathery sprays, and its small, pendulous, egg-shaped cones at the branch tips. It grows slowly but lives for over 500 years. The hemlock woolly adelgid — an invasive insect — has devastated populations across much of its range, making conservation efforts critically important. In the garden it is superb for shaded hedges and woodland settings.
Mountain Hemlock
Mountain hemlock is a high-altitude conifer of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains, growing at and near the timberline in some of the most extreme snowpack environments in North America — areas that may receive 50 feet of snow annually. It forms a slender, spire-like tree with dense, blue-green to gray-green needles that are rounder in cross-section than other hemlocks — a key identification feature. Near the timberline it often grows in dramatically wind-flagged or prostrate forms shaped by the weight of snow and persistent winds. It is one of the most snow-tolerant of all conifers.
Subalpine Fir
Subalpine fir forms the most striking and recognizable silhouette of any high-mountain conifer — an extremely narrow, spire-like, Christmas-tree-perfect crown that is perfectly adapted to shed the enormous snowloads of its alpine habitat. The needles are flat, soft, and blue-green to silvery-blue-green, crowded on the branches, and the upright, purple-blue cones are held erect on the upper branches like purple candles. Hardy to zone 3, it grows from Alaska to the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona, always near the timberline. The narrow, perfectly symmetrical form makes it one of the most architecturally striking of all native conifers.
White Fir
White fir is a large, handsome fir of the mountains of the American West, producing flat, soft, upward-curving needles in silvery blue-green to gray-green — among the most attractive needle color of any western fir. It forms a symmetrical, broadly conical tree that is more heat and drought-tolerant than most firs, adapting well to garden conditions outside its native range. Concolor is the botanical name used in horticulture, and the cultivar Candicans has particularly intense silvery-blue needles. Hardy to zone 3, it is one of the best large firs for landscape use, providing a bold, permanent, year-round silvery-blue accent of great beauty.
Grand Fir
Grand fir is a tall, broadly conical fir of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains, producing distinctive, flat, glossy dark green needles arranged in two rows of different lengths — longer needles in the outer rows, shorter ones in the center — creating a distinctive, two-dimensional, comb-like appearance. Crushed needles have a pleasant, citrusy, tangerine-like fragrance. The upright, cylindrical cones are borne high in the crown. It grows rapidly in moist, fertile lowland sites and is one of the fastest-growing of all firs, capable of growing several feet per year in favorable conditions.
Balsam Fir
Balsam fir is the quintessential Christmas tree of northeastern North America, a medium-sized, narrowly conical fir of boreal forests and cool mountain slopes from Labrador and Alberta south to Virginia in the Appalachians. It produces flat, rounded-tipped, dark glossy-green needles with two white bands below and upright, purple-blue cylindrical cones. The crushed needles and bark emit the classic, clean, powerfully sweet balsam fragrance instantly recognized as the smell of Christmas. It is a short-lived tree in the landscape but unsurpassed as a Christmas tree for its fragrance, form, and needle retention after cutting.
Noble Fir
Noble fir is considered by many botanists and foresters to be the most magnificent of all American firs — a tall, straight, broadly columnar tree of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington, producing dense, upward-curving, blue-green needles and the largest and most impressive cones of any North American fir: large, cylindrical, greenish-purple cones adorned with distinctive, down-pointing bracts that give them an almost feathered appearance. The perfectly straight, clear trunk and beautiful, symmetrical crown make it a tree of outstanding forest and landscape dignity. Its boughs are prized above all others for Christmas wreaths and garlands.
Pacific Silver Fir
Pacific silver fir is a high-elevation fir of the Pacific Northwest, named for the striking, bright silvery-white stomatal bands on the undersides of its flat, dark green needles that make the foliage appear silver when the branches move in the wind. It grows in dense, moist, high-altitude forests with mountain hemlock and subalpine fir, often in areas of very heavy snowfall. The dark, smooth, gray bark with resin blisters on young trees and upright, dark purple cones contribute to its handsome appearance. It is one of the most beautiful of the Pacific Northwest firs but is rarely planted outside botanical collections.
Common Juniper
Common juniper holds the distinction of having the widest natural range of any woody plant on Earth — it grows across the entire Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic Circle south through Europe, Asia, and North America, occupying an extraordinary variety of habitats from coastal cliffs and boreal forest to mountain slopes and desert margins. It is enormously variable in form — from a low, ground-hugging, mat-forming shrub to a tall, narrow, columnar tree. The sharp, needle-like juvenile foliage is prickly and distinctive, and the fleshy, berry-like, waxy blue-gray cones — used to flavor gin — are among the most familiar of all conifer fruits. Hardy to zone 2.
Western Juniper
Western juniper is a rugged, gnarled, supremely drought-tolerant conifer of the high desert plateaus, rocky slopes, and dry mountain foothills of the American West, from eastern Washington and Oregon south through California to Baja California. It forms a massive, broad-crowned, picturesque tree with a thick, fibrous, cinnamon-red, shredding bark and dense, scale-like, gray-green foliage. Ancient specimens — some over 1,000 years old — develop spectacularly contorted, weathered forms of great sculptural beauty. It is one of the defining trees of the Great Basin desert landscape and is extraordinarily tolerant of heat, cold, drought, and poor soils.
Rocky Mountain Juniper
Rocky Mountain juniper is a medium to large, narrowly conical to columnar juniper native to the mountain foothills and high desert regions of the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains, and Great Basin. The scale-like foliage is blue-green to gray-green, and female trees produce abundant, waxy, blue-gray berry-like cones that provide essential winter food for birds. It is an important tree for wildlife habitat in arid regions and one of the most drought-tolerant conifers available for dry-climate landscapes. The cultivar Skyrocket is a dramatic, extremely narrow, columnar selection widely used as a vertical accent in gardens.
Italian Cypress
Italian cypress is one of the most architecturally distinctive trees in the world — a tall, narrow, flame-like column of dense, dark green, scale-like foliage that is unmistakably Mediterranean in character and has defined the visual identity of the Italian and Tuscan landscape for thousands of years. It appears in Roman paintings, Renaissance art, and the cypress-lined avenues of Tuscany that remain among the most iconic landscape images on Earth. Hardy to zone 7 in well-drained conditions, it is perfect for formal gardens, Mediterranean and Spanish Colonial landscapes, and anywhere a bold, dramatic, vertical accent is needed.
Leyland Cypress
Leyland cypress is a vigorous, fast-growing hybrid between Monterey cypress and Alaska cedar, forming a dense, broadly columnar to conical tree with fine-textured, scale-like, dark green to gray-green foliage that holds its color year-round. It is the most widely planted large hedge and screening tree in Britain and is popular throughout the temperate world for its rapid growth — up to four feet per year — and dense, year-round screening quality. It is hardy to zone 6 and adaptable to a wide range of soils. Its very vigor, however, requires regular pruning to prevent it from overwhelming neighboring plants and structures.
Monterey Cypress
Monterey cypress is one of the rarest trees in the world in its native habitat — wild populations are restricted to two small groves on the Monterey Peninsula in California covering just a few acres — but it is one of the most widely planted ornamental and forestry trees in the world, particularly in coastal regions of Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and South Africa. In its native habitat it grows in dramatic, wind-sculpted, flat-topped forms of great character, shaped by the constant Pacific winds. Goldcrest is an extremely popular golden-foliaged cultivar. It is supremely salt and wind tolerant.
Alaskan Yellow Cedar
Alaskan yellow cedar — also called yellow cypress or Nootka cypress — is a large, graceful conifer of the wet coastal mountains from Alaska to northern California and the Cascades, forming a broadly conical tree with steeply pendulous branchlets of flat, scale-like, blue-green foliage that hang in long, drooping curtains giving the tree an almost weeping, mournful beauty. The wood is extraordinarily durable, fine-grained, and aromatic — among the most rot-resistant woods in North America — and has been used by Northwest Coast peoples for centuries for canoe paddles, bows, and ceremonial objects. Hardy to zone 4, it is a magnificent specimen tree for cool, moist climates.
Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria)
Japanese cedar is the national tree of Japan, a tall, straight, broadly conical tree with spirally arranged, awl-shaped, bright green needles and small, round, spiky cones. It forms dense, cathedral-like groves of great beauty in the cool, humid mountains of Japan and China, with the famous avenue at Nikko — over 40 kilometers long and lined with thousands of ancient cryptomeria — regarded as one of the most magnificent tree avenues in the world. In the garden the foliage often turns attractive bronze to purplish-red in winter cold, and numerous ornamental cultivars offer compact, pendulous, and contorted forms for smaller gardens.
Hinoki Cypress
Hinoki cypress is one of Japan’s most sacred and culturally important trees, grown in the grounds of temples and shrines for centuries and used for the construction of the most important Shinto shrines, which are ritually rebuilt every 20 years from Hinoki timber. It is a broadly conical, medium to large tree with distinctive, blunt-tipped, scale-like foliage in flat, fern-like sprays with a characteristic white, X-shaped marking on the underside of each branchlet. The bark is reddish-brown and fibrous. Numerous ornamental cultivars are among the most popular and elegant of all garden conifers, ranging from dwarf golden mounds to sweeping, pendulous forms.
Sawara Cypress
Sawara cypress is a large, broadly conical Japanese conifer closely related to Hinoki cypress but with slightly more pointed, sharper scale-like foliage on flattened, fern-like branch sprays. It is the parent species of an extraordinary range of ornamental garden cultivars that are among the most diverse and useful in conifer gardening. Filifera produces long, thread-like drooping branchlets; Plumosa bears soft, moss-like juvenile foliage; Squarrosa has dense, feathery, silvery-blue awl-shaped needles; Boulevard is a compact, densely conical form with intensely silver-blue, soft foliage. Hardy to zone 4, sawara cypress cultivars provide some of the finest textures and colors in the conifer garden.
Bristlecone Pine
Bristlecone pine is the oldest living non-clonal organism on Earth — individual trees in the White Mountains of California have been verified to be over 5,000 years old, with the oldest known living tree, Methuselah, estimated at over 4,800 years. These ancient trees grow in the harshest, most inhospitable conditions imaginable — rocky, dolomitic soils above 9,000 feet in the Great Basin, exposed to brutal winds, extreme cold, and intense ultraviolet radiation. The needles are short, dense, and sticky with resin — remaining on the branches for 40 years or more — and the small cones bear distinctive, bristle-tipped scales. Ancient specimens develop spectacularly weathered, twisted forms of extraordinary sculptural beauty, their dead wood polished silver-white by centuries of wind-driven ice crystals.