OMORICA, OR FLAT-LEAVED SPRUCES 119 



reference presumably of his connection with the 

 Society of the Jesuits, and as he signed himself — 

 and the lesser but still renowned members of their 

 family, selecting with crafty care choice specimens 

 of wood from the best of their growths ; of another, 

 old Jacob Steiner of Salzburg, the German fiddle 

 designer, exploring the woodlands and mountain- 

 sides in quest of them, and tapping their trunks, 

 like a hungry woodpecker, in zealous endeavour to 

 discover which responded most musically to the 

 vibrations of desired sound, or on other occasions 

 standing on the precipitous edge of some gorge or 

 ravine, and hearkening eagerly for a stray sound of 

 some tone or overtone as they toppled over, and 

 crashed down crag and rock, felled by the hand 

 of skilled fellers. 



It seems then, even from these few particulars of 

 its back history, that the Spruce of the higher alti- 

 tudes, in those latitudes and the outlying mountain 

 lands of Lombardy, has 3'et much of its history to be 

 written of, and more than that, many of its ancient 

 secrets to be rediscovered, and perhaps some of those 

 lost chords of its musical mysteries to be reawakened, 

 if it is ever to attain a well-deserved apotheosis. 



OMORICA, OR FLAT-LEAVED SPRUCES 



Group I. — Hondoensis, Ajanensis, Sitkensis, 

 MoRiNDOiDES (Shoots Glabrous) 



Yet through the gray and sombre wood 

 Against the dusk of fir and pine. 



Whittier. 



The flat-leaved Spruces are so called for the all- 

 sufficient reason that their leaves are flat, like the 

 Abies, and not four-sided as the afore-discussed 

 Eupiceae ; on this point they have strayed from the 

 fold of the true Piceae. That they are not ranged 

 with the Abies is due to the fact that their leaves 



