Illustrations of Conifers. 49 



PICEA SITCHENSIS (Carriere). SITKA SPRUCE. 



Veitch's Man. Conif. ed. 2, p. 452 (1900). 



Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. I. p. 92 (1906). 



A TREE attaining in North America a height of 200 feet with a trunk 

 20 feet in diameter, tapering above the enlarged base. Cultivated trees 

 have usually a broadly pyramidal outline. Bark with large, thin, red- 

 brown scales. Branchlets yellow, shining, glabrous. Buds ovoid with 

 obtuse scales. 



Leaves on lateral branchlets arranged like Picea ajanensis, but 

 narrower, linear, flattened, rigid, with sharp points, - f inch long ; 

 deeply keeled on the ventral green surface and almost convex on 

 the dorsal surface which has two broad white bands of stomata. 



Cones shortly stalked, cylindrical - oval, obtuse, 2 to 4 inches 

 long, by 1 to 1| inches wide, composed of oblong or oblong-oval scales 

 which have denticulate margins ; bracts lanceolate, about half as long 

 as the scales. Seed with a wing three or four times its length. 



Picea sitchensis extends farther north-west than any other North 

 American conifer, being found in long. 151 west on the east end of 

 Kadiak Island, and all through the coast region of Alaska and British 

 Columbia, west Washington and Oregon, and as far south as Caspar 

 in Mendocino Country, California. Being a distinctly moisture loving 

 tree, it is never found more than 50 miles from the sea. It was 

 discovered in Puget Sound by Archibald Menzies in 1792 but was 

 not introduced into England until about 40 years later by Douglas. 

 It is now common in cultivation. The timber is valuable, and used 

 for all constructive purposes. 



The Bayfordbury specimen of Picea sitchensis was planted in 

 1840, and is now 61 feet high by 6 feet 6 inches in girth. 



