The Spruces 



ber. The seed produces a large percentage of vigorous seedlings, 

 and they transplant well. In the eastern and northern parts of 

 the United States the trees do well from seed gathered in the 

 Rocky Mountains. Failures in seedlings imported from European 

 nurseries are traceable to the fact that seeds came from the 

 Pacific coast plain, and the seedlings therefore are not hardy in 

 the more rigorous climate of the East and North. In the seeds 

 furnished by high mountain trees this difficulty is overcome. 

 Even in the droughty regions of Kansas and Nebraska these trees 

 planted in sheltered situations and in clumps grow into trees of 

 exceeding beauty. Exposed in windbreaks the foliage is damaged, 

 the trees lose their " leaders," and acquire bad shapes thereafter. 

 Big- Cone Spruce (Pseudotsuga macrocarpa, Mayr.) A 

 broadly pyramidal tree, 40 to 80 feet high, with stout trunk, pen- 

 dulous lower limbs, and erect upper cones. Branchlets slender. 

 Bark scaly, thick, reddish brown, furrowed, with rounded ridges. 

 Wood brown, hard, heavy, strong, not durable. Buds ovate, 

 small, scaly. Leaves linear, sharp pointed, spreading or 2-ranked, 

 dark bluish grey, f to i^- inches long. Flowers cone-like, staminate 

 yellow in shining, scaly involucre; pistillate green tinged with 

 red. Fruit usually on upper branches, 4 to 7 inches long, oblong- 

 cylindrical, scales often 2 inches across, thin, entire; bracts 

 scarcely as long as scales. Preferred habitat, mountain slopes. 

 Distribution, southern California, in San Bernardino Mountains, 

 at altitude of 3,000 to 5,000 feet. Uses: Wood used for fuel; 

 sparingly for lumber. 



7 



