Its range extends into northern parts of the United States: in Alaska, the Great Lakes region, and the upper Northeast.

[8] P. mariana is a slow-growing, small upright evergreen coniferous tree (rarely a shrub), having a straight trunk with little taper, a scruffy habit, and a narrow, pointed crown of short, compact, drooping branches with upturned tips.

Numerous differences in details of its needle and pollen morphology also exist but require careful microscopic examination to detect.

Due to the large difference between heartwood and sapwood moisture content, it is easy to distinguish these two wood characteristics in ultrasound images,[9] which are widely used as a nondestructive technique to assess the internal condition of the tree and avoid useless log breakdown.

In the northern part of its range, ice pruned asymmetric black spruce are often seen with diminished foliage on the windward side.

[3][11] In the southern portion of its range it is found primarily on wet organic soils, but farther north its abundance on uplands increases.

Throughout boreal North America, Betula papyrifera (paper birch) and Populus tremuloides (quaking aspen) are successional hardwoods that frequently invade burns in black spruce.

Black spruce is a pioneer that invades the sphagnum mat in filled-lake bogs, though often preceded slightly by Larix laricina (tamarack).

[12] However, as the peat soil is gradually elevated by the accumulation of organic matter and the fertility of the site improves, balsam fir and northern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis) eventually replace black spruce and tamarack.

Balsam fir and northern white cedar, both more understory-tolerant species with deeper taproots, survive and eventually succeed the spruce in the absence of fire.