INDIGENOUS TREES AND SHRUBS. 25 



in pairs usually, adhering closely to the branches, like so many horns. 

 Seeds remain in their scaly covers two or three years before dropping out. 



NORWAY OK RED PINE, P. TCSinOSa. 



Specially northern, sometimes Scattered, but mostly in groups. A spir- 

 ing tree, straight trunk, towering up 40 to 50 feet or more to where the 

 limbs ramify. Excellent for piles, wharves, bridge piers, masts, etc. 

 Our lumbermen distinguish two varieties the Hard, or Pig-iron Nor- 

 way, of thick sap and often so hard as to turn the edges of an ax, and the 

 Red-Barked or Timber Norway, with less sap and softer ripewood, and its 

 bark more in plates. Valuable as a lumber tree for special purposes. 

 Leaves a dark green, five or six inches long, united in pairs at the extrem- 

 ity of the branches. Female flowers bluish, cones thornless, about two 

 inches long, round at base, pointed at summit. Sheds the seeds the first 

 year. This beautiful tree is hardy and vigorous. Recommendable for 

 farm and lawn. 



white pine, P. strobxis. 



The white pines are our principal lumbering trees, the largest and most 

 yseful, growing often from 80 to 125, and, rarely, 150 feet high, and from 

 three to six feet in diameter. The elevated and broken region north of 

 latitude 46 degrees, and east of the meridian of the outlet of Red Lake, 

 including an area of 21,000 square miles, is the pine lumber territory of 

 Minnesota. The principal pine forests stretch in a broad belt in this great 

 district, nearly north of said parallel. Lumbermen mention two varieties 

 of this species, the Pumpkin Pine, more yellow in ripewood, and the Sap- 

 ling pine, of thicker sap and whiter ripewood. The saplings are far the 

 more numerous. Leaves five-fold, four inches long, slender, of a bluish 

 green, delicate and beautiful. Cones long, cylindrical, pendant longer 

 than the leaves. Seeds thin shelled and winged, usually dropping out in 

 October. The preservation of this and the Red Pine species from the 

 hands of the spoiler, is a matter of practical consideration. It is indeed 

 sad to contemplate its extinction from our native woodlands, a fatality 

 sure to befall us unless the government hastens to prevent it. 



black double spruce, Picea nigra. 



Common in the northeast woodlands, mostly found in the swamps, and 

 there stunted and forbidding, and of little use, save as a shield with the 

 mosses against undue evaporation of water there conserved. In favorable 

 localities will grow to a magnificent tree, seventy feet or more high. Its 

 wood is white, light, strong and elastic; makes good spars and knees of 

 vessels. When free from knots is used for sounding boards to musical 

 instruments. From the bark of the young branches is made the spruce 

 beer. The Black Spruce attains its best condition in humid, deep soil, 

 covered with thick mosses. It is pyramidal in form, and very pretty. 

 Leaves a dark green, firm and numerous. Flowers appear at the extrem- 

 ities of the smallest branches; small, reddish, oval cones; winged seeds, 

 ripening in tLe late fall. 



