36 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



sometimes cone-bearing when only 2-3 high. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, light reddish 

 brown, puberulous, about |' long. Bark j' |' thick and broken on the surface into thin 

 rather closely appressed gray-brown scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, pale yellow- 

 white, with thin sapwood; probably rarely used outside of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 

 except in the manufacture of paper pulp. Spruce-gum, the resinous exudations of the 

 Spruce-trees of northeastern America, is gathered in considerable quantities principally 

 in northern New England and Canada, and is used as a masticatory. Spruce-beer is 

 made by boiling the branches of the Black and Red Spruces 



Fig. 39 



Distribution. At the north on well-drained bottom-lands and the slopes of barren stony 

 hills, and southward in sphagnum-covered bogs, swamps, and on their borders, from Labra- 

 dor to the valley of the Mackenzie River in about latitude 65 north, and, crossing the 

 Rocky Mountains, through the interior of Alaska to the valley of White River; southward 

 through Newfoundland, the maritime provinces, eastern Canada and the northeastern 

 United States to central Pennsylvania, and along the Alleghany Mountains to northern 

 Virginia; and from the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, through 

 northern Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba, and south to northeastern and northern 

 Minnesota, and central Wisconsin and Michigan; very abundant at the far north and the 

 largest coniferous tree of Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba, covering here large areas 

 and growing to its largest size; common in Newfoundland and all the provinces of eastern 

 Canada except southern Ontario; in the United States less abundant, of small size, and 

 usually only in cold sphagnum swamps (var. brevifolia Rehd.) 



Occasionally planted as an ornamental tree, the Black Spruce is short-lived in cultivation 

 and one of the least desirable of all Spruce-trees for the decoration of parks and gardens. 



2. Picea rubra Link. Red Spruce. 



Picea rubens Sarg. 



Leaves more or less incurved above the middle, acute or rounded and furnished at the 

 apex with short callous points, dark green often slightly tinged with yellow, very lustrous, 

 marked on the upper surface by 4 rows and on the lower less conspicuously by 2 rows of 

 stomata on each side of the prominent midrib, ^'-f long, nearly iV wide. Flowers: male 

 oval, almost sessile, bright red; female oblong-cylinojric, with thin rounded scales reflexed 

 and slightly erose on their margins, and obovate bracts rounded and laciniate above. 

 Fruit on very short straight or incurved stalks, ovoid-oblong, gradually narrowed from 

 near the middle to the acute apex.. l'-2' long, with rigid puberulous scales entire or 

 slightly toothed at the apex; bright green or green somewhat tinged with purple when 



