When you are talking about guitar tops, the slower growing season is a plus. When spruce cedar, etc. have their growth rigs closer together, the strength/weight ratio is better for guitar tops. The best spruce for many years was Engleman spruce grown in high altitudes in the Alps (before it became scarce and ultra expensive).

For backs, sides, and necks, the tropical hardwoods are traditionally favoured, each species contributing its own particular strengths to the guitar's tone. Mahogany was considered to contribute to a more mellower sound than Rosewood, etc. (as with cedar to spruce). Plus certain sizes of guitar bodies worked better with certain woods (cedar/mahogany with smaller guitars, spruce/rosewood with dreadnoughts/jumbos, etc.) All of this is just general rule-of-thumb though and by far, the biggest contributing factor is the lutherie involved. Consider the Pallet Guitar by Bob Taylor, a fine guitar built by Bob Taylor & Co. out of scrap wood from discarded pallets in the parking lot. Excellent wood of course makes an excellent guitar, but it can also make a shitty one in the hands of a hack.

I've mentioned Glen Reid before (*grin*)... He was recently making guitars using tamarack and there was nothing lacking in the tone of his instruments at all. Glen uses mostly Canadian-grown woods, if I'm not mistaken.