30 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CONIFEE^. 



and very dark brown, with delicate pale brown lustrous wings broadest above the middle, very oblique 

 at the apex, often nearly half an inch long and an eighth of an inch wide. 



Picea Mariana inhabits sphagnum-covered bogs, and swamps and their borders, and at the north 

 also well drained bottom-lands and the slopes of barren stony hills ; it is distributed from the shores of 

 Ungava Bay southwestward to those of Hudson Bay, and from the mouth of the Nelson River north- 

 westward to the valley of the Mackenzie in about latitude 65° north,^ and reappearing west of the Rocky 

 Mountains on the interior plateau of British Columbia in latitude 53°,^ it is common in the interior 

 of Alaska as far north at least as the shores of Frances Lake and the valley of the Pelly River ; ^ 

 southward it ranges through Newfoundland, the Maritime Provinces, eastern Canada, and the north- 

 eastern United States to Pennsylvania, and along the Alleghany Mountains to northern Virginia 3 * 

 it occurs on the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta,^ and extends through Assiniboia, 

 northern Saskatchewan, and northern Manitoba to central Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. In 

 the Labrador peninsula the Black Spruce is the most abundant tree, growing both in cold sphagnum 

 swamps and on high hills covered with sands or with rocks or heavy glacial drift, usually in dense 

 thickets, with long slender naked stems, but along the border of the treeless plains, where, alone with 

 the Larch, the Black Spruce holds the northern outposts of the forest, it grows in open glades, and its 

 stout trunks are clothed to the ground with branches.*^ West of Hudson Bay the Black Spruce also 

 reaches the margin of the barren lands, forming scattered groves along the Telzoa River down to 

 Doobaunt Lake, in latitude 63°, the most northern plants being here low shrubs with wide-spreading 

 branches, from which occasionally a small upright stem rises to the height of four or five feetJ On 

 the alluvial bottom-lands of the Athabasca River, between latitudes 58° and 59°, the Black Spruce is 

 abundant, with trunks often three feet in diameter and occasionally eighty feet in height. It is the 

 largest coniferous tree of Saskatchewan and of northwestern Manitoba, frequently covering large areas 

 and growing both on well drained bottoms, where it attains its largest size, and on low stony hills, 

 where it is small and stunted. The Black Spruce is common in Newfoundland, and in all the provinces 

 of eastern Canada except in southern Ontario, growing in cold wet swamps and rarely attaining a 

 greater height than thirty feet.^ Farther south it is also almost exclusively an inhabitant of swamps 

 and their borders, although occasionally a few stunted individuals maintain a foothold on the summits 



1 Richardson, Franklin Jour. Appx. No. 7, 752; Arctic Searching 

 Exped. ii. 317. 



2 Picea Mariana was collected by Dr. G. M. Dawson in 1876, 

 east of the coast mountains of British Columbia, near the Black- 

 water River. 



^ See G. M. Dawson, Rep. Geolog. Surv. Can. n. ser. iii. pt. i. 

 112 B, 116 B, 118 B. — Macoun, Rep. Geolog. Surv. Can. n. ser. iii, 

 pt. i. Appx. iii. 226 B. 



^ Britton & Brown, III. Fl. i. 55 (as Picea rvhra). 



^ During the summer of 1897 Picea Mariana was found by Mr. 

 John Macoun about thirty miles from Calgary, on one of the 

 branches of the Elbow River. 



^ " The Black Spruce is the most abundant tree of the Labrador 

 peninsula, constituting at least ninety per cent, of the forest, and 

 it is found everywhere from the shores of the St. Lawrence north- 

 ward to Ungava Bay, and from the Atlantic coast to Hudson Bay. 

 The northern limit of its distribution, which coincides with that of 

 the forest region, leaves the east coast of Hudson Bay in the 

 neighborhood of latitude 57°, passes almost due east for about one 

 hundred miles, until the watershed of Hudson Bay is crossed, when 

 the course changes to nearly northeast, following the lower country 

 of the Koksoak River, and reaches nearly to the shore of Ungava 

 Bay, about fifteen miles north of the mouth of the Koksoak River, 

 in about latitude 58° 30' north. The trees skirt the southern shore 

 of Ungava Bay to George River, at its southeastern corner, and 



grow from five to ten miles from the shore. From the mouth of 

 George River, in latitude 68°, the line passes eastward for a short 

 distance to the western flanks of the high Atlantic coast range, 

 which here rises from three thousand to six thousand feet above the 

 sea-level, and is quite barren. The Black Spruce is found in small 

 open glades along the western flanks of the range, in the valleys of 

 the streams and on the shores of lakes, southward to latitude 54°, 

 where the groves become connected and a continuous forest covers 

 the lower ground, while the hilltops remain bare for upwards of 

 one hundred miles farther south. 



*' On the Atlantic coast the islands and mainland are without 

 trees to below latitude 58°, where small Spruce and Larch are first 



r 



found about watercourses, at tlie heads of the deep narrow fiords 

 which penetrate far inland on this coast. At Davies Inlet, in lati- 



^ r 



tude 56°, the trees are found growing everywhere along the coast, 

 covering the lower hills, up to an elevation of five hundred feet, 

 but the islands are still barren. At Hamilton Inlet, in latitude 54°, 

 the trees ascend the hills to an elevation of nearly one thousand 

 feet; and the inner islands are well wooded, only those far out from 

 shore remaining barren." (Low in litt. See, also, Low, Rep. Geolog^ 

 Surv. Can. n. ser. viii. 35 L.) 



■^ Tyrrell, Rep. Geolog. Surv. Can. n. ser. ix. 214 F. 



s Brunet, Cat. Veg. Lig. Can. 58 (in part). — Macoun, Cat. Can. 

 PL 468 (in part). 



