The Spruces 



large, with reflexed scales. Leaves dull blue-green to silvery 

 white, variable ; rigid, stout, curving, horny pointed, striped on 

 both sides with white, | to i^ inches long, shorter on fruiting 

 twigs. Flowers: staminate reddish yellow ; pistillate green, the 

 scales square at end, and bracts pointed. Fruit, stalked cones, 

 pendant on upper limbs, 2 to 3 inches long, oblong, brown, 

 shining ; scales flat, narrowing to fmger-iike blunt point ; seeds 

 winged.. Preferred habitat, elevation 6,000 to 10,000 feet, banks 

 of streams. Distribution, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Uses: 

 Ornamental tree planted in Europe and United States. Hardy, 

 and grows well in Middle West ; conspicuous in the East. 



We have come to feel well acquainted with the blue spruce 

 of Colorado through the beautiful blue or silver-leaved specimen 

 trees so common on lawns everywhere we go. It is a cool, 

 crisp-looking tree, of perfect symmetry, the whorls of branches 

 well apart, insuring the full development of leaves and branch- 

 lets. It is a disappointment to its owner that the growing tree 

 loses at length its lower limbs and the symmetry of its top. Yet 

 this is a far-off event, and there are years of satisfaction ahead 

 for the buyer of a handsom.e little blue spruce for his garden. 

 Shrubbery can be tucked in around the tree when it begins to 

 age, and other trees so placed as to hide its shortcomings. 



Weeping Spruce {Picea Breiceriana, Wats.) Tree 75 to 

 125 feet high, with swollen base and tapering shaft; branches 

 drooping and crowded, to the ground; twigs remarkably long 

 and slender. Bark brick red, thin, scaly. Wood soft, close 

 grained, satiny, pale brown, heaviest of native spruces. 

 Buds conical, small, scaly, brown. Leaves flattened on the 

 upper side only, blunt, pale above, dark green and lustrous 

 beneath, f to i^ inches long. Flowers: staminate rich purple; 

 pistillate oblong; scales broad, rounded, turning out at edge, 

 with cut-toothed bract under each. Fruit slender cones, 2 to 4 

 inches long, tapering, stalked, purple turning to orange-brown, 

 opening in autumn, but hanging a year empty; scales broad, 

 entire, thin, turning backward; seeds winged. Preferred habi- 

 tat, dry ridges on mountains near timber line. Distribution, 

 elevation 4,000 to 7,000 feet, California and Oregon. In isolated 

 groves in coast ranges. 



It is somewhat embarrassing to the hard-working horticul- 

 turist in the East to be asked his opinion of the weeping spruce. 



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