1 392, The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



PICEA SPINULOSA, Sikkim Spruce 



Picta spinulosa, Henry, in Gard. Chron. xxxix. 219 (1906); Beissner, in Mitt. Deut. Dend. Ges. 



1906, p. 83 ; Clinton-Baker, Illust. Com/, ii. 50 (1909). 

 Picea morindoides, Render, in Sargent, Trees and Shrubs, i. 95, t. 48 (1903); Henry, in Gard. 



Chron. xxxix. 132, 219 (1906), and in Trees of Great Britain, i. 77 (1906); Masters, in Gard. 



Chron. xxxix. 218, fig. 84, and 274, fig. 113 (1906), and xli. 388 (1907); Brandis, Indian 



Trees, 720, 721 (1906); Stapf, in Bot. Mag. t 8169 (1907). 

 Picea Alcockiana, Carriere, var. morindoides, Mottet, Conif. et Taxac. 273 (1902). 

 Abies spinulosa, Griffith, Journals, 259 (1847), ar >d Kin. Notes, 145 (1848). 

 Abies Morinda, Lindley, in Gard. Chron. 1855, p. 334 (not Picea Morinda, Link). 

 Abies Smithiana, Hooker, Himalayan Journals, ii. 32 (1854) (not Lindley). 

 Pinus spinulosa, Griffith, Icon. PI. Asiat. t. 363 (1854). 



A tree, attaining in the eastern Himalayas over 200 ft. in height. Bark rough 

 and scaling off in small quadrangular plates. Young branchlets slender, glabrous, 

 yellowish grey. Buds, about \ in. long, ovoid, obtuse at the apex, brown, scarcely 

 resinous, with glabrous obtuse scales. Leaves, in an imperfect radial arrangement, 

 covering in closely imbricated ranks the upper side of the branchlets, those on the 

 lateral sides directed outwards and forwards, those on the under side pointing down- 

 wards and forwards ; \ to \\ in. long, ^ in. broad, slender, acute at the apex, which 

 is tipped with a sharp point ; flattened, but keeled on both surfaces, so that the 

 section is rhomboid-elliptic ; ventral surface green without stomatic lines and directed 

 towards the light ; dorsal surface with two stomatic bands, each of 4 to 6 lines ; resin 

 canals, two (occasionally absent), dorsal, near the edges and close to the hypoderm. 



Staminate flowers pink, f in. long ; connective with an orbicular denticulate 

 appendix. Cones, about 2 \ in. to 3 in. long on cultivated trees, up to 4 in. long on wild 

 trees, 1 to \\ in. in diameter, cylindric, obtuse at the apex, green with a purple 

 border to the scales when growing, shining brown when mature : scales thin and 

 flexible, suborbicular with a cuneate base, about \ to in. wide, bevelled in the 

 upper margin, which is rounded, 1 entire, undulate, or slightly denticulate : bract 

 ovate, acute, \ in. long. Seed, \ in. long, greyish brown ; seed with wing \ in. long ; 

 wing broadest above the middle, rounded and denticulate at the apex. 



This species is distinguishable from the other flat-leaved spruces with glabrous 

 branchlets, by the leaves somewhat radially arranged, distinctly keeled on both 

 surfaces, slender, and ending in a sharp point. The leaves of P. sitchensis, which are 

 similar in appearance, are arranged on the lateral branches as in the common spruce. 



This species appears to be the only spruce occurring in the eastern Himalayas, 

 where it has been found in Sikkim and Bhutan, at 8000 to 10,000 ft. altitude. There 

 are no specimens of/*. Smithiana from this region in the Calcutta and Kew herbaria. 2 



1 In some wild specimens the scales are truncate in the upper margin. 



2 The specimens in the Calcutta Herbarium, which were sent on loan to Kew in 1910, comprise the following : 



"Sikkim, chief forest tree in "inchingung ; King, 1875." 

 " Sikkim, Lachen ; King's collector in 1 885." 



" Sikkim, Lachung ; Gammie, 1892." Referred to as P. Morinda in Rec. Bot. Survey India, i. No. ii. pp. 11, 19. 

 "Chumbi; Gamble, 1880." 

 "Chumbi; King's collector, 1884." 

 There are no specimens from Bhutan, either iu the Kew or Calcutta herbarium. 



