284 FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



flank the Presidential Range it rises far above its 

 neighbors from a bed of damp moss and pale-tinted 

 ferns, with tall, sheer trunk, and scragged limbs 

 draped with hoary moss, the acknowledged king of 

 the wilderness. It bears all the marks of a hard 

 fight for life amid opposing elements, but winter's 

 storms and biting arctic winds avail nothing, for, 

 in spite of them, the tree climbs to the very borders 

 of the Alpine region. 



As Gray hardly does more than mention the red 

 spruce in the Manual, and in the Field, Forest, and 

 Garden Botany he does not allude to it at all, it will 

 be best for me to point out those differences which 

 have been explained to me by several botanists, and 

 add the results of my own observations. 



The general appearance of the red species in 

 the White Mountains, and the black species in the 

 Arnold Arboretum, do not correspond at all ; the 

 trees are entirely different in color. The red spruce 

 is a dark, yellow-olive green ; the black spruce is in- 

 clined to a purplish black olive or an intense olive- 

 green. Of course, the color of the red species re- 

 solves itself to an intensely dark, black green, as it is 

 seen among the deciduous trees in summertime on 

 the flanks of the great mountains ; it is not possible, 

 therefore, to judge of a tree color when it is a mile 

 or so away ; but as seen together, the two species a 



