io6 PICE^, OR SPRUCE TREES 



question dissociates some of them. Of the longer- 

 leaved lot we should include — 



Of the shorter-leaved lot we should count — 



In Group III 



In Group I 



Alba. 

 Maximowiceii. 



Nigra. 



Rubra, 



Glehnii, 



Orientalis and Obovata, 



In the Omoricas the margins of the plentifully 

 found cones, whether they are entire, frayed or jagged, 

 and of whatever shape at the apex, tells a tale, but 

 rather an obscure one, we own, of their identity. This 

 applies also to the Engelmannii, Bicolor, and Pungens 

 in the Spruce Group. These cones and those of the 

 Sitka, Ajanensis, and Hondoensis, bear a certain 

 similitude in appearance, and their scales seem all 

 composed of the same soft, spongy, squeezable, 

 light-brown material. Most of the others, like the 

 Eupiceae (the Common Spruce, Morinda, etc.), seem 

 to be made of a much more leathery and tougher 

 dark-brown substance. 



The application of the name Abies to Silver Firs, 

 and Picea to Spruces, has b .'en a dispute of many 

 years' standing. Whether the one word was — as 

 some authorities have suggested — derived from the 

 Latin word abeo^ and used in an ascendant sense, 

 " abeimt in nuhila monies " (as the mountains rise to 

 the skies), majr or may not be, but if it is so, it is 

 and was the Silver Fir that indisputably represented 



