AMERICAN FOREST TREES 135 



regions generally too wet for woods to burn, and it will suffer less 

 from forest fires than trees of inland regions. It is an abundant seeder, 

 and its favorite seedbed is moss, muck, decayed wood, and wet ground 

 litter of various kinds. For the first few years seedlings are sensitive 

 to frost, but not in later life. 



Sitka spruce is often planted as an ornamental tree in western 

 Europe^ and occasionally in the middle Atlantic states. The New 

 England climate is too severe for it. 



ENGELMANN SPRUCE (Picea engelmanni) was named for Dr. 

 George Engelmann. It has other names. In Utah it is called balsam, 

 white spruce in Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, mountain spruce in 

 Montana, Arizona spruce farther south, while in Idaho it is sometimes 

 known as white pine. That name is misleading, for Idaho has a species 

 of white pine (Pinus monticola). In eastern markets the wood is known 

 as western spruce ; but that, also, is indefinite, for Sitka spruce is also a 

 western species and is found in the same markets as Engelmann 

 spruce. This tree's range extends from Yukon territory to Arizona, 

 fully 3,000 miles. It is a mountain species and is found in elevated 

 ranges. In the southern part of its habitat it ascends mountains to 

 heights of nearly 12,000 feet. It grows in the Cascade mountain ranges 

 in Washington and Oregon. The species' best development occurs in 

 British Columbia. At its best, trees are 150 feet high and four or five in 

 diameter; but every size less than that occurs in different parts of its 

 range, down to a height of two or three feet for fully matured trees. 

 Such are found on lofty and sterile mountains where frost occurs prac- 

 tically every night in summer, and winter snows bury all objects for 

 months at a time. Though the stunted spruce trees may be only two 

 or three feet high, then* branches spread many feet, and lie flat on the 

 rocks. Though such situations are exceedingly unfavorable to tree 

 growth, the stunted spruces survive sometimes for two hundred years, 

 and during that long period may not grow a trunk above five inches in 

 diameter and four feet high. The Engelmann spruce is naturally a 

 long-lived tree, and large trunks are 500 or 600 years old; and trees 

 ordinarily cut for lumber are 300 or 400 years old. When the tree is 

 young, its form is symmetrical, the longest branches being near the 

 ground, the shortest near the top; but in crowded stands the trunk 

 finally clears itself. Engelmann spruce lumber is usually full of small 

 knots, each of which represents a limb which was shaded off as the tree 

 advanced in age. The wood is lighter than white pine, and is the lightest 

 of the spruces, the weight being 21.49 pounds per cubic foot. It is not 

 strong, and it rates low in elasticity. The wood is pale yellow, tinged 

 with red. The thick sapwood is hardly distinguishable from the heart. 



