40 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



pointed, gradually narrowed at the base into short strongly incurved stalks, ^'-1^' 

 long, with rigid puberulous scales rounded or rarely somewhat pointed at the apex 

 and more or less erose on the notched pale margins, turning as they ripen dull gray- 

 brown and becoming as the scales gradually open and slowly discharge their seeds 

 almost globose ; sometimes remaining on the branches for twenty or thirty years, 

 the oldest close to the base of the branches near the trunk ; seeds oblong, nar- 

 rowed to the acute base, about ^' long, very dark brown, with delicate pale brown 

 wings broadest above the middle, very oblique at the apex, about ^' long and ^' 

 wide. 



A tree, usually 20-30 and occasionally 100 high, with a trunk 6'-12' and rarely 

 3 in diameter, and comparatively short branches generally pendulous with upward 

 curves, forming an open irregular crown, light green branchlets coated with pale 

 pubescence, soon beginning to grow darker, and during their first winter light cinna- 

 mon-brown and covered with short rusty pubescence, their thin brown bark gradu- 

 ally becoming glabrous and beginning to break into small thin scales during their 

 second year ; at the extreme north sometimes a low semiprostrate shrub ; fre- 

 quently cone-bearing when only 2-3 high. Winter-buds ovate, acute, light 

 reddish brown, puberulous, about ^' long. Bark \'-^' thick and broken on the surface 

 into thin rather closely appressed gray-brown scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, 

 pale yellow-white, with thin sapwood; probably rarely used outside of Manitoba and 

 Saskatchewan, except in the manufacture of paper pulp. Spruce-gum, the resinous 



exudations of the Spruce-trees of northeastern America, is gathered in considerable 

 quantities principally in northern New England and Canada, and is used as a mas- 

 ticatory. Spruce-beer is made by boiling the branches of the Black and Red Spruces. 

 Distribution. At the north on well-drained bottom-lands and the slopes of barren 

 stony hills, and southward in sphagnum-covered bogs, swamps and on their borders, 

 from Labrador to the valley of the Mackenzie River in about latitude 65 north, and, 

 crossing the Rocky Mountains, through the interior of Alaska to the valley of White 

 River ; southward through Newfoundland, the maritime provinces, eastern Canada 

 and the northeastern United States to Pennsylvania, and along the Alleghan^^Moun- 

 tains to northern Virginia; and from the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains 

 in Alberta, through Assiniboia, northern Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba, to 

 central Wisconsin and Michigan ; very abundant at the far north and the largest 

 coniferous tree of Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba, covering here large areas 



