538 EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS, 



THE SPRUCE FIRS. Abies. 



For the reader not familiar with botany, the general distinction 

 between the pines proper, and the firs, is, that the latter generally 

 have shorter leaves attached all round the twigs, or occasionally on 

 two sides, and the trees are more uniformly conical in form. This 

 meagre mention of their differences can, of course, convey no 

 valuable idea of the obvious diversity of characteristics which they 

 present to the eye. 



The firs are subdivided into two great classes, the Abies, or 

 spruce firs, and the Piceas, or silver firs. 



Gordon, author of " The Pinetum," describes the Abies botani- 

 cally, as follows : " Leaves solitary, four-sided, and scattered all 

 round the shoots, or flat, and more or less in two rows laterally. 

 Flowers, male and female on the same plant, but separate. Cones 

 pendant, solitary, and terminal, with thin persistent scales." 



THE WHITE SPRUCE FIR. Abies alba. This is a light-colored 

 thin-foliaged tree with horizontal branches ; growing wild in the 

 northern border of our country, in the Canadas, and north to the 

 Arctic Sea. Height fifty feet ; diameter of the trunk seldom more 

 than eighteen inches. " The bark is lighter colored than that of 

 any other spruce ; the leaves are also less numerous, longer, more 

 pointed, at a more open angle with the branches, and of a pale 

 bluish-green " (Loudon). Cones pendulous, one and three-quarters 

 to four inches long, and five-eighths to six-eighths broad. We are 

 not certain of having seen this variety fairly grown in open ground. 

 There is much confusion existing between this and the intermediate 

 varieties of the black and red spruces. The white spruce has 

 probably not had a fair trial in cultivated grounds. Growing wild 

 it is certainly a thin, meagre-foliaged tree, decidedly inferior to 

 the black spruce or the Norway spruce. Grown thriftily in open 

 ground, perhaps it may develop some beauty. There are two 

 pretty dwarfs of this species : the Abies alba ?iana, which forms a 

 dense spreading bush three or four feet high ; and the hedge-hog 

 white spruce, Abies alba minima, which is much smaller almost 

 too small to be useful. 



