Picea abies 'Cornell Broom' is a dense, tightly clothed, globose, miniature selection of Norway spruce with short, symmetrical branching and short 0.2 inch (5mm) long, medium green needles with prominent winter buds at the branch tips. After 10 years of growth, a mature specimen will 12 inches (30 cm) tall and wide, an annual growth rate of 1 inch (2.5 cm) or less.
Although precise information regarding the origin of this cultivar is not explicitly known, its name covers most of the mystery. It was obviously a witch's broom selection and Cornell is the name of a famous university in Ithaca, New York, where some unknown individual found the original mother broom.
