Picea 



l 37S 



Seeds sent to St. Petersburg by Tschonoski in 1865 were distributed by Regel 

 to various botanic gardens on the Continent. The best specimen that I have seen 

 is a tree with ascending branches at the Agricultural School of Grignon near Paris, 

 which is about 30 ft. in height by 19 in. in girth; but M. Hickel 1 tells me that there 

 are still finer trees elsewhere in France. 



A smaller tree in the Arnold Arboretum, U.S.A., also bears cones, smaller in 

 size than those on the tree at Grignon. Another in Mr. Hunnewell's pinetum at 

 Wellesley, Mass., was n ft. high in 1905. There is also a small specimen 2 in the 

 spruce collection at Kew, a bush about 4 ft. high ; and two trees at Handcross Park, 

 Sussex, the taller of which was 32 ft. by 2 ft. 5 in. in 191 1. These were planted 

 about thirty years ago, and have not as yet borne cones. (A. H.) 



PICEA NIGRA, Black Spruce 



Picea nigra, Link, Handb. ii. 478 (1831); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 438 (1900); Clinton-Baker, 



Illust. Conif. ii. 41 (1909). 

 Picea Mariana, Britton, Sterns, and Poggenburg, Cat. PI. N. York, ji (1888); Sargent, Silva N. 



Amer. xii. 28, t. 596 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 39 (1905). 

 Picea brevifolia, 3 Peck, Spruces of the Adirondacks, 13 (1897), and in Bull. Torrey Pot. Club, xxvii. 



409 (1900). 

 Abies Mariana, Miller, Diet. ed. 8, No. 5 (1768). 



Abies nigra, Du Roi, Harbk. Baumz. ii. 182 (1800); Loudon, Arb. et. Prut. Brit. iv. 2312 (1838). 

 Abies denticulata, Michaux, PI. Bor. Amer. ii. 206 (1803). 

 Pinus Mariana, Du Roi, 06s. Bot. 38 (1771). 

 Pinus nigra, Solander, in Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 370 (1789). 



A tree, attaining in America 100 ft. in height and 9 ft. in girth, but usually 

 much smaller. Bark brownish, fissuring into irregular thin appressed scales. Buds 

 small, ovoid, acute ; the terminal buds surrounded at the base by ciliate pubescent 

 scales with conspicuous long subulate points. Young branchlets brownish, with 

 dense short erect glandular pubescence, retained on the dark-coloured branchlets 

 of the second year. Leaves, arranged on lateral branches as in the European 

 spruce, about \ in. long, bluish or glaucous green, slightly incurved, ending in a 

 short cartilaginous point, quadrangular in section, with four lines of stomata on each 

 of the two sides turned towards the branchlets, and with one to two lines on each of 

 the other sides. 



Cones persistent on the branches for several years, ovoid, acute at the apex, f to 

 1^ in. long, dark purple when growing, dull brown when ripe ; scales rigid, woody, 

 pubescent, about f in. wide, rounded or rarely pointed at the apex, denticulate 



1 M. Hickel informs me that the older trees in France, which were planted about 1868, were originally raised in 

 Thibaut and Keteleer's nursery at Sceaux, from seed given them by Carriere, which he received from Kegel. Of late years 

 this spruce has been propagated by grafting. 



* This is perhaps the same shrub as that from which a specimen in the Kew Arboretum herbarium was taken in 1882, 

 labelled "low bush, I to 2 ft. (rounded). Pinetum, Aug. 3,1882. J. D. Hooker." The low stature of the shrub at Kew 

 indicates probably an alpine origin for the seed from which it was raised. 



* This is the ordinary stunted form of P. nigra, growing on swamps and exposed mountain summits, and is not distinguish- 

 able even as a variety by Sargent, or by Britton and Shafer, N. Amer. Trees, 57 (1908) ; Rehder, in Bailey, Cyc. Am. Hort. 

 iii. 1334, fig. 1794 (1901), and in Rhodora, ix. 109 (1907), has distinguished it as var. brevifolia. 



VI G 



