GROWTH OF SPRUCE PINE. 



129 



The male flowers are lateral, sessile, and about one-half to three-fourths of an inch long, 

 slender, surrounded by five to six pairs of short ovate, rather obtuse stiff scales, with a narrow 

 membranaceous lacerated border. The crest of the anther is elliptical, with fine denticulations' 

 The small female aments are mostlysingle, short stalked, the carpellary scales lauce shaped with 

 slender tips aud subtended by the short infertile bract. 



The cones are mostly single with a short stalls; and of various shapes on the same tree, from 

 round to oblong ovate or more or less cone-shaped, from 1^ to 2 inches long, and, on the opening 

 of the scales from three-fourths to one inch wide, of a light tawny color. The scales are softer 

 and more flexible than in the Shortleaf Pine, the apopliysis broader, with the umbo depressed 

 unarmed, or with a minute, weak, erect, aud deciduous prickle, the ridge faint, hazel-brown on 

 the inside. The somewhat triangular roughish seeds, black with brown specks, about three- 

 sixteenths of an inch long and one-eighth inch wide, separating easily from the wing which is 

 little over one half inch long aud surrounds the seed to the base. 



PEOGKESS OF DEVELOPMENT. 



The Spruce Pine begins to flower aud to produce perfect seeds at an age of twelve to fifteen 

 years, in greatest abundance between twenty and forty years; the flowers appear during the 

 earliest part of March; shortly after pollination the female aments assume a horizontal position 

 and finally become more or less reflected. At the end of the first season the conelets are of the 

 size of a large pea. Tlie cones mature in the second year in the month of September; the seeds 

 are freely shed early in the Ml They germinate during the lall and early in the coming sprino- 

 the plautlets, with eight to ten slender, soft cotyledons, are over an inch long. Tlie terminal bud 

 develops rapidly, densely covered with the slender, soft primary leaves which are sharp pointed 

 and frequently over an inch in length. Early m April seedlings are found over one-half toot Ion- 

 later in the season fascicles of the foliage leaves appear in the axils of the upper primary leaves' 

 when the lower wither and disappear near the end of the season. At this stage the seediin"-'s are 

 generally a foot high with the root system less developed than in its kindred species at the^same 

 age; the taproot scarcely 2 iuches in length with a few short lateral roots. 



With the twentieth year the trees are generally from .30 to 35 feet high and i to U inches in 

 diameter, the stem clear of limbs for the length of about 12 feet. They attain their full growth 

 at an age of from sixty to seventy-five years. 



The trees for the United States timber tests from the border of the swamps on the banks of 

 the Tensaw River in Baldwin County, Ala., showed the following dimensions and age: 



Measurements of five trees. 



From these figures it appears that the two trees forty-six and fifty-three (average forty-nine) 

 years old have an average volume of G3 cubic feet and grew at the rate of about 1.3 cubic feet, 

 while the three trees seventy-five to eighty-three (average seventy-eight) vears old have an 

 average volume of about 152 cubic feet and an average yearly growth of about'2 cubic feet. The 

 following represents a typical case : 



Growth of Spruce Pine. 



17433— ^To. 13- 



a For ago of tree add about three years. 



