CONIFERS. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



31 



of the high hills of northern New England and New York. In the United States it is most common 

 and grows to its largest size in the territory adjacent to the Great Lakes, where, however, it is 

 nowhere abundant, thriving only in the moistest situations, and rarely producing trunks a foot in 

 diameter. It is far less abundant than the Red Spruce in all the Appalachian region, and everywhere 

 east of the Alleghany Mountains the Black Spruce is a small and comparatively rare tree, although it 

 extends farther south along the Atlantic seaboard than any other Spruce, and occupies numerous 

 small swamps near the coasts of southern New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 



The wood of Picea Mariana is Hght, soft, and not strong ; it is pale yellow-white, with thin 

 sapwood, and contains thin resinous bands of small summer cells and narrow conspicuous medullary 

 rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.5272, a cubic foot weighing 32.86 pounds. 

 It is probably rarely used, except in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, for other purposes than the manu- 

 facture of paper pulp. Spruce gum, the resinous exudations of the Black and Red Spruces, and 

 occasionally of the White Spruce, is gathered in considerable quantities, principally in northern New 

 England and Canada, and is used as a masticatory.^ Spruce beer is made by boiliug the branches of 

 the Black and Red Spruces.^ 



Picea Mariana was introduced by Bishop Compton, into his garden near London, before the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century,^ although the earliest description of it was not published until 

 1755.^ Still frequently cultivated in western Europe,^ and occasionally in the northern United States, 

 the Black Spruce is one of the least desirable of all Spruce-trees for the decoration of parks and gardens, 

 soon losing in cultivation the shapely habit and the vigorous beauty of its youth, which are replaced 

 by a naked stem and a small open head of short straggling branches. In European nurseries a few 

 abnormal forms of dwarf habit, or with pendulous branches, or with yellow or white leaves, are 

 occasionally propagated.® 



^ The resinous exudations of the Spruee-trees of eastern North 

 America are obtained from the cavities of decayed knots and other 

 natural depressions extending to the heartwood in the trunks of 

 these trees, and not from wounds made for the purpose. The 

 gum is collected in winter by "gummers," men on snow-shoes, 

 carrying long poles armed with chisels, with which the resinous 

 masses are knocked or cut off and caught in small cups attached 

 to the poles just below the chisels. (See Menges, Contrib. Dep, 

 Pharm. University of Wisconsin, No. 2, 30; Am. Jour. Pharm. Iviii. 

 394. — Bastin & Trimble, Am. Jour. Pharm. Ixviii. 413.) 



A tincture prepared by dissolving the resinous gum of the east- 

 ern Spruce-trees in alcohol is occasionally used in medicine, al- 

 though it has no official recognition in the Pharmacopceias. (See 

 Millspaugh, Am. Med. PI. in Homceopaihic Remedies., ii, 163.) 



2 The preparation of a fermented beverage made by boiling 

 Spnice branches with honey was probably familiar to the northern 

 Indians before the settlement of the country by Europeans, who 

 learned the art from them; and in 1672 the value of Spruce beer 

 was recognized by Josselyn, who thus describes its virtues: — 



" The tops of Green Spruce Boughs boiled in Bear, and drunk, 

 is assuredly one of the best Kemedies for the Scurvy, restoring the 

 Infected party in a short time; they also make a Lotion of some 

 of the decoction, adding Hony and Allum." {New England's Rari- 

 ties, 64.) 



Spruce beer, which is considered a pleasant and agreeable drink 

 in hot weather, and a useful preventive of scurvy, is now made 

 from the essence of spruce, which is a liquid of the color and con- 

 sistency of molasses, with a bitter astringent acid flavor, obtained 

 by boiling the young branches of the Black and Red Spruces in 

 water and evaporating the decoction, the disagreeable odor of the 



White Spruce making it unsuitable for this purpose. To prepare 

 this beverage the essence of spruce is boiled in water flavored with 

 various ingredients, and is then mixed with molasses or occasion- 

 ally with sugar, allowed to ferment, and bottled. (See Duhamel, 

 Traite des Arhres, i. 17. — Kafinesque, Med. Fl. ii. 183. — Spons, 

 Encyclopcedia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, and Raw Com- 

 mercial Products, i. 424. — Druggists^ Circular, New York, 1880, 120. 

 — Mineral Water Revieio, 1881, 140. — U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 1487. 



^ Aiton, Hort, Kew. iii. 370. — Loudon, Arh. Brit. iv. 2312, f. 

 2225-2227. 



* Abies picecCffoliis hrevioribus, conis parvis biuncialihus laxis, Du- 

 hamel, I. c. i. 3. 



Abies Picecefoliis brevioribus, Conis biuncialibus laxis^ Miller, Diet, 

 Icon. i. 1, t. 1. 



^ In Great Britain the Black Spruce appears to be more com- 

 monly cultivated than any other conifer of eastern North America, 

 with the exception of the White Pine, and, judging from numerous 

 specimens which have been sent to me from England and Scotland, 

 it does duty in Europe as the Black, Red, and White Spruces. 



^ The most distinct of the garden forms of the Black Spruce, at 

 least in its young state, is the variety Doumetii ^ this is a dwarf 

 plant, with short crowded branches, forming a narrow and very 

 compact pyramidal head, and with crowded leaves, which was first 

 noticed about 1835 in the garden of the Chateau de Bal^ne, near 

 Moulins, in France, and was described by Carrifere in the Traite 

 Conif. 242, as Picea nigra Doumetii. (For other abnormal forms 

 of the Black Spruce, see Beissner, Handb. Nadelh. 337. See, 

 also, Gard. Chron. ser. 3, xi. 81, t., for a description of a remark- 

 ably compact pyramidal form of the Black Spruce cultivated in 

 the Wilhelmshbhe Park and in the Karlsane Park in Cassel.) 



