44 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CONIFERiE. 



blue-green or pale steel-blue. The staminate flowers are oblong-cylindricalj and about five eighths of 

 an inch long and a quarter of an inch thick, with dark purple anthers, and are raised on slender stems 

 often nearly a quarter of an inch long when fully grown. The pistillate flowers are oblong-cylindrical, 

 bright scarlet, and from one third to five eighths of an inch in length, with pointed or rounded and 

 more or less divided or entire scales, their bracts being oblong and rounded, or acute or acuminate 

 and denticulate at the apex, or obovate-oblong and abruptly acuminate. The cones are oblong- 

 cylindrical or oval, gradually narrowed to both ends and usually about two inches long, although they 

 vary in length from one inch to three inches, with thin flexible striate scales which are slightly concave, 

 very thin, and generally erose-dentate or rarely almost entire on the margins, and are usually broadest 

 at the middle, wedge-shaped below, and gradually contracted above to a truncate or rarely acute 

 apex, or occasionally they are obovate and rounded above ; the cones, which are sessile or very short- 

 stalked, are borne in great numbers on the upper branches, even the prostrate shrubs at the upper 

 limits of tree-growth being often covered with small cones ; they are horizontal and ultimately pendulous, 

 and when fully grown are light green somewhat tinged with scarlet, with scales which are spreading or 

 appressed, and light chestnut-brown and lustrous at maturity; they mostly fall in the autumn or 

 early in their first winter and soon after the escape of the seeds.-' These are rather obtuse at the 

 base, nearly black, and generally about half as long as their broad and very oblique wings. 



From the Rocky Mountains of Alberta and British Columbia Picea Engelmanni is distributed 

 southward over the interior mountain systems of the continent to northern New Mexico and Arizona, 

 forming great forests at elevations of from five thousand feet at the north up to eleven thousand five 

 hundred feet at the south, and westward through Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, where it 

 is usually scattered among other trees.^ Attaining its greatest size and beauty north of the northern 

 boundary of the United States, the Engelmann Spruce forms the largest part of the great forests which 

 clothe the high mountains of southern Alberta, those which overlook the valley of the Columbia in 



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British Columbia, and the Selkirk Mountains.^ The Spruce forests are less extensive in the region 



^ In the size of its cones and in the shape of its cone-scales and 

 their hracts, Picea Engelmanni shows greater variation than the 

 other North American species of Picea. In Colorado, Utah, and 

 Arizona the cone-scales are rhomboidal, more or less truncate at 

 the apex, entire or erose-denticulate to a greater or less degree on 

 the margins, and appressed or spreading, their bracts being usually 

 oblong and rounded or acute at the apex, or rarely acuminate, 

 while the cones vary from an inch to three inches in length on 

 adjacent trees, (See Brandegee, Boi, Gazette, iii. 32.) Farther 

 northward, especially in northern Wyoming, northern Montana, 

 and in Alberta, some trees bear large cones with truncate scales, 

 but others produce cones generally about an inch and a half long 

 with oblong-obovate scales rounded above and frequently nearly 

 entire on the margins, their bracts varying from oblong-rounded 

 to acuminate. These cones, seen by themselves, might well sug- 

 gest another species, but they are connected with those of the other 

 extreme form by a long series of intergrading forms ; and in habit, 

 bark, and foliage the trees which produce the different kinds are 

 not distinguishable. 



2 On the mountains of the upper Columbia Basin, in the United 

 States, Picea Engelmanni, although generally scattered, Is less 

 common than it is on the Rocky Mountains, and often of smaller 

 size, although on the northern slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon, 

 where it is abundant in the Hemlock and Fir forests between alti- 

 tudes of three thousand and six thousand feet, it frequently attains 

 a height of one hundred and twenty-five feet and a trunk diameter 

 of three feet on the shores of lakes and streams, while on dry 

 hillsides it is much smaller and stunted in appearance. Farther 

 southward Picea Engelmanni grows near Upper Klamath Lake in 



swampy ground down to elevations of about two thousand five 

 hundred feet above the sea. This is the lowest station where I 

 have seen it, except near Priest Lake in the extreme northern part 



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of Idaho, where it descends to two thousand three hundred feet. 

 On the west side of the Cascade Mountains Picea Engelmanni, 

 although not common, grows along the whole length of the range, 

 and is usually found only in small groves in moist or swampy 

 situations. It is said by Mr, A. J. Johnson to grow in the coast 

 range on Saddle Mountain, a few miles south of Astoria, Oregon, 

 between elevations of three thousand and six thousand feet above 

 the sea-level. 



This western form is the Picea Columbiana of Lemmon (Gar^ 

 den and Forestj x. 183), who has tried to distinguish it from the 

 tree of the Kocky Mountains by its smaller size, rather different 

 habit, scaly bark, and smaller cones with " thin obovate obtuse 

 scales" with "scarious wrinkled edges." The cones, however, of 

 the Spruce of the Cascades and of the Blue Mountains of Washing- 

 ton and Oregon which I have seen do not differ materially in size 

 and shape from those produced in Colorado and Arizona, showing 

 less variation from them than from the cones on some trees in the 

 northern Rocky Mountains. Mr. Lemmon describes the bark of 

 Picea Engelmanni as " thick, brown, and deeply furrowed," but 

 wherever I have seen this tree from Alberta and British Columbia 

 to Arizona it has the scaly cinnamon-red bark which is character- 

 istic of the trees of the Columbian basin and the western slope of 

 the Cascade Mountains. 



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3 The most northern stations where I have seen Picea Engel- 



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manni are on the mountains above Laggan, on the line of the Cana- 

 dian Pacific Railroad in Alberta, and on the Selkirk Mountains in 



