46 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



at the apex, rather oblique at the base, suspended on straight slender stalks, deep 

 rich purple or green more or less tinged with purple wiien fully grown, becoming 

 light orange-brown, 2'-4' long, with thin broadly ovate Hat scales longer than broad, 

 rounded at the apex, opening late in the autumn after the escape of the seeds, often 

 becoming strongly reflexed and very flexible; usually remaining on the branches until 

 the second winter; seeds acute at the base, full and rounded on the sides, ^' long, 

 dark brown, and about one quarter the length of their wings broadest toward the 

 full and rounded apex. 



A tree, usually 80-100 high, with a trunk 2-3 in diameter above the swell- 

 ing of its enlarged and gradually tapering base, and furnished to the ground with 

 crowded branches, those at the top of the tree short and slightly ascending, with com- 

 paratively short pendulous lateral branches, those lower on the tree horizontal or 

 pendulous and clothed with slender flexible whip-like laterals often 7-8 long and 

 not more than ^ thick and furnished with numerous long thin lateral branchlets, 

 their ultimate divisions slender, coated with fine pubescence persistent until their 

 third season, bright red-brown during their first winter, gradually growing dark 

 gray-brown. Winter-buds conical, light chestnut-brown, ^' long and ^' thick. Bark 

 of the trunk |'-|' thick, broken into long thin closely appressed scales dull red-brown 

 on the surface. Wood heavy, soft, close-grained, light brown or nearly white, with 

 thick hardly distinguishable sapwood. 



Distribution. Dry mountain ridges and peaks near the timber-line on both slopes 

 of the Siskiyou Mountains on the boundary between California and Oregon, forming 

 small groves at elevations of about 7000 above the sea; on a high peak west of 

 Marble Mountain in Siskiyou County, California; on the Oregon coast ranges at the 

 head- waters of the Illinois River at elevations of 4000-5000. 



*^ Cone-scales oblong-oval, denticulate above the middle. 



7. Picea Sitchensis, Carr. Tideland Spruce. Sitka Spruce. 



Leaves standing out from all sides of the branches and often nearly at right 

 angles to them, frequently bringing their white upper surface to view by a twist at 

 their base, straight or slightly incurved, acute or acuminate, with long callous tips 

 slightly rounded, green, lustrous, and occasionally marked on the lower surface with 

 2 or 3 rows of small conspicuous stomata on each side of the prominent midrib, 

 flattened, obscurely ridged and almost covered with broad silvery white bands 

 of numerous rows of stomata on the upper surface, ^-l^^' long and yb'-jV wide. 

 Flo"wers : staminate at the ends of the pendant lateral branchlets, dark red ; pistil- 

 late on rigid terminal shoots of the branches of the upper half of the tree, with 

 nearly orbicular denticulate scales, often slightly truncate above and completely 

 hidden by their elongated acuminate bracts. Fruit cylindrical-oval, short-stalked, 

 yellow-green often tinged with dark red when fully grown, becoming lustrous and 

 pale yellow or reddish brown, 2^'-4' long, with thin stiff oblong-oval scales rounded 

 toward the apex, denticulate above the middle, and nearly twice as long as their lan- 

 ceolate denticulate bracts, deciduous mostly during their first autumn and winter; 

 seeds full and rounded, acute at the base, pale reddish brown, about \' long, with 

 narrow oblong slightly oblique wings \'-\' in length. 



A tree, usually about 100 high, with a conspicuously tapering trunk often 3 - 

 4 in diameter above its strongly buttressed and much-enlarged base, occasionally 

 200 tall, with a trunk 15 - 16 in diameter, horizontal branches forming an open 



