Picea abies 'Humilis' is a very slow growing, irregular, clumpy, compact conical selection of Norway spruce with crowded branchlets holding clusters of buds, while occasionally throwing a faster growing shoot. Winter buds are distinctive and light yellowish brown in color. After 10 years, a mature specimen will measure 3 to 4 feet (1 - 1.3 m) tall and two-thirds as wide, an annual growth rate of 3 to 5 inches (7.5 - 12 cm). No two specimens will look alike.
'Humilis' is a very old cultivar in the nursery trade that is of unknown origin. German horticulturalist and dendrologist, Ludwig Beissner first described it in his 1887 book, Handbook of Coniferen-naming: Systematic classification of conifers and list of all in Germany. The epithet means literally "low, dwarf" in the Latin language.
