CONlFER-aE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



29 



shrub. The branches^ which are slender^ comparatively short, and usually pendulous with upward 

 curves, form the open and irregular crown which is characteristic of the Black Spruce, and sometimes, 

 when the tree has grown in a favorable position, clothe the stem to the ground, or soon fall from its 

 lower half when the tree has been shaded by neighbors or stunted by insufficient nourishment.^ The 

 bark of the trunk is from one quarter to one half of an inch in thickness, and is broken on the 

 surface into thin rather closely appressed gray-brown scales. The branchlets when they first emerge 

 from the buds in early summer are pale green, and, like the bases of the leaves, are coated with 

 pale pubescence ; they soon begin to grow darker, and during their first autumn and winter they are 

 light cinnamon-brown and covered with short rusty pubescence, their thin dark brown bark gradually 

 becoming glabrous, and beginning to break up into small thin scales during their second year. The 

 winter-buds are ovate, acute, Hght reddish brown, puberulous, and about one eighth of an inch in 

 length, with ovate closely appressed acute scales. The leaves stand out from all sides of the branches, 

 and are tetragonal, ribbed above and below, abruptly contracted at the apex into short slender callous 

 tips, longer and more acute on sterile than on fertile branches, slightly incurved above the middle, 

 pale blue-green when they first appear, bluish green and glaucous at maturity, from one quarter to 

 three quarters of an inch in length, hoary on the upper surface from the broad bands of conspicuous 

 stomata, and lustrous and sKghtly stomatif erous on the lower surface. The staminate flowers are 

 subglobose and about an eighth of an inch in length, with dark red anthers, and the pistillate 

 flowers are oblong - cyhndrical, with obovate purple scales rounded above, wedge-shaped below, 



r ' 



puberulous and tumid on the outer surface, and marked below the thin erose bright red margin by a 

 conspicuous transverse glaucous band, and with oblong purple glaucous bracts rounded and denticulate 

 at the apex. The cones increase rapidly in size, and are often almost fully grown in early summer 

 before the young shoots have attained half their length ; at maturity they are ovate, pointed, gradually 

 narrowed at the base into short strongly incurved stalks clothed with the persistent enlarged erose 

 inner scales of the flower-buds, which increase in size from the base to the apex of the stalk, and 

 gradually assume the appearance of the small sterile lower cone-scales ; usually about an inch long, 

 the cones vary from one half of an inch to an inch and a half in length ; their scales are rigid, 

 rounded or rarely somewhat pointed at the apex, and puberulous, with delicate more or less erose or 

 notched pale margins ; in ripening the cones turn a dull gray-brown, and as the scales gradually open 

 and slowly discharge their seeds they often become almost globose in form,and remain on the branches 

 sometimes for twenty or thirty years, the oldest close to the bases of the branches near the trunk. 

 The seeds are oblong, gradually narrowed to the acute base, about an eighth of an inch in length. 



often destitute of living branches, although unshaded and growing 

 far from other trees. These dense tufts of dark branches like 

 plumes upon poles present a strange spectacle to the traveler who 

 for the first time crosses the larger muskeags, especially at twi- 

 light, for he seems to be looking over a weird procession, stretching 

 often mile after mile until lost in the distance." On the small 

 muskeags there is often a regular gradation in the size of the 

 trees, from little seedlings close to the water in the centre of the 

 bog to tall slender specimens often sixty feet in height, with thiu 

 drooping branches which are freely developed on the better soil of 

 the high margins, and trunks which rarely exceed eight inches in 

 diameter. (See Ayres, Garden and Forest^ vii. 504, f. 80 [The 

 Muskeag SpruceJ). 



Cone-bearing Black Spruces not over two feet high are very 



I 



abundant also in the sphagnum-covered bogs of Prince Edward's 

 Island. 



^ " There seems to be four forms of the Black Spruce in north- 

 ern Minnesota. First, the unland form with pendulous branches : 



second, the common upland form with stiff branches, the two 

 grading one into the other ; third, the dwarf tree with only fruiting 

 branches and perhaps a few others at the base of the stem, grow- 

 ing on very wet muskeags; fourth, the stiff-branched tree, growing 

 mostly on drier land than number three, although still on sphagnum 

 and usually on the borders of the same muskeags. I can see no 

 distinct lines of separation between these forms, which seem to 

 grade into each other, that is, intermediate forms are found in 

 complete series, and I am inclined to believe that the variation in 

 the development of the branches is due to the conditions under 

 which the trees are grown. Plants of the branchless form of the 

 muskeags are of remarkably slow growth. One of these I cut, and 

 counted seventy-five layers of annual growth in the stem, which 

 was about an inch and a half in diameter. Such wood is very 

 compact and even in texture. Occasionally one of the upland trees 

 is cut for log timber, but they are never large, and I have not seen 

 one above twelve inches in diameter." (Ayres, in Utt.') 



