The Towering Norwegian

At 123 feet, Spokane's Heritage Tree Register calls this Norway spruce the second tallest of its kind in the city, and names the tree that beats it: a spruce on 26th Avenue in the Rockwood Historic District, planted in the same era and standing a few feet taller by the register's own account. Norway spruce is a European transplant, planted across American parks and gardens for its speed and its shape rather than for any native claim to the Inland Northwest. This one grows among the champions and rarities Finch Arboretum has collected since the 1940s, sharing the grounds with the state's largest white willow and two of the first dawn redwoods ever brought to the continent. Only the register has looked at it. No second source names the tree or checks its height, so take the 123 feet as one institution's measurement rather than a settled fact, the same caution this page gives its neighbours here. It stands a short walk from the willow and the redwoods, one more stop in an afternoon that is already worth the trip.