Handbook of Trees of the Northern States and Canada. 23 



Tins beautiful Spruce is restricted in its 

 natural home to the banks and vicinity of 

 mountain streams of Colorado, Wyoming and 

 Utah, between the altitudes of 0500 and 

 H)000 ft. In these localities it sometimes 

 attains in the forests a heij,'lit of 100 or ex- 

 ceptionally 150 ft., with trunk 2-3 ft. in thick- 

 ness and narrow often irregular open top. 

 The isolated tree, however, especially in its 

 youth, possesses a rare and uiiicpie type of 

 beauty. Its branches grow out in sj'mmetrical 

 whorls of flattened sprays longest near tlie 

 ground and successively shorter towards tl-.o 

 top, forming a perfect and beautiful pyramid. 

 Tills is farther enhanced by the massed toliaga 

 Oa silvery blue or tints ranging from that to a 

 purplish blue or green, a single bed of seedlingi 

 presenting perhaps the entire range. Its 

 beautiful form ami color together with its 

 hardiness make it one of the most valuable 

 acquisitions for ornamental planting of recent 

 years. 



The wood of the Blue Spruce is light, a cu. 

 ft. weighing 2.'?. 31 lbs., soft, with satiny sur- 

 face and suitable for the uses mentioned of the 

 Red Spruce. - 



Lrarcfi risid, 4-sid('(l, from 'i in. on fertile 

 branches to l^^ in. Ion?,' on sterile, curved, sijiny. 

 acuminate, bluish green to silvery or dull green ; 

 branchlets glaboiis. FInircrs reddish yellow ; pis- 

 tillate with broad denticulate scales and acute 

 bract. Fruit: cones subsessile, oblonsr-cylindrical. 

 ;i^-4 in. long with ulossy rhoiiiboidai flexuose 

 scales narrow and erose-dciuate at the elongated 

 apex; seed M^ in. long with sliort wide wing.-' 



1. Syn. P. pungens Engelm. 



2. A. W., XI, 275. 



3. For genus see p. 420. 



