Martinez's spruce

Picea martinezii, the Martinez's spruce, or Nuevo León spruce, is a medium-sized evergreen tree growing to 25–35 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 1 m. It is native to northeast Mexico, where it occurs at six localities in the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains in Nuevo León. It grows at moderate altitudes from 2150–2600 m, growing along streamsides in mountain valleys, where moisture levels in the soil are greater than the otherwise low rainfall in the area would suggest.

The bark is thin and scaly, flaking off in small circular plates 5–10 cm across. The crown is conic, with widely spaced branches with drooping branchlets. The shoots are stout, pale buff-brown, glabrous, and with prominent pulvini. The leaves are needle-like, 23–35 mm long, stout, moderately flattened in cross-section (but unlike other spruces, flattened from side-to-side, not top-to-bottom), bright glossy green with inconspicuous lines of stomata; the tip is viciously sharp.