Taxonomic history:
1785: C. Moench described this species as Pinus glauca in Verzeichniss ausländischer Bäume und Stauden des Lustschlosses Weissenstein bey Cassel, p. 73.)
1824: Albert Gottfried Dietrich created the genus Picea in part 2 of his Flora der Gegend um Berlin.
early 1900s: Voss transferred the above Pinus glauca to Picea.
today: The current name for this species is Picea glauca (Moench) Voss
original Latin description
Pinus foliis solitariis, sparsis, tetragonis, glaucis; strobilis pendulis.
English ranslation
Pinus with leaves solitary, scattered, tetragonal, glaucous; with strobili pendulous.
English translation with commentary
| Pinus | Pinus |
| with leaves | foliis - ablative plural of second declension neuter noun folium, -i |
| solitary, | solitariis - ablative plural neuter of group A adjective solitarius, -a, -um; modifies foliis. Here the adjective solitarius, -a, -um refers to the leaves occurring singly as opposed to some other "Pinus" species (e.g., P. strobus) whose leaves grow in fascicles. |
| scattered, | sparsis - ablative plural neuter of group A adjective sparsus, -a, -um; modifies foliis. Whereas solitarius, -a, -um above focused on the condition of a single leaf, sparsus, -a, -um here calls attention to the arrangement of leaves relative to each other. |
| tetragonal, | tetragonis - ablative plural neuter of group A adjective tetragonus, -a, -um; modifies foliis. |
| glaucous; | glaucis - ablative plural neuter of group A adjective glaucus, -a, -um; modifies foliis. |
| with strobili | strobilis - ablative plural of 2nd declension masculine noun strobilus, -i |
| pendulous. | pendulis - ablative plural masculine of group A adjective pendulus, -a, -um; modifies strobilis. |