40 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



cylindric, slightly narrowed at the ends, usually about 3' long, green more or less tinged 

 with red when fully grown at midsummer, becoming pale chestnut-brown and lustrous, 

 with flat tough rhombic scales flexuose on the margins, and acute, rounded or truncate 

 at the elongated erose apex ; seeds |' long or about half the length of their wings, gradually 

 widening to above the middle and full and rounded at apex. 



A tree, usually 80-100 or occasionally 150 high, with a trunk rarely 3 in diameter 

 and occasionally divided into 3 or 4 stout secondary stems, rigid horizontal branches dis- 

 posed on young trees in 

 remote whorls and de- 

 creasing regularly in length 

 from below upward, the 

 short stout stiff branchlets 

 pointing forward and mak- 

 ing flat-topped masses of 

 foliage; branches on old 

 trees short and remote, 

 with stout lateral branches 

 forming a thin ragged py- 

 ramidal crown; branch- 

 lets stout, rigid, glabrous, 

 pale glaucous green, be- 

 coming bright orange- 

 brown during the first win- 

 ter and ultimately light 

 grayish brown. Winter- 

 Fig. 43 buds stout, obtuse or rare- 

 ly acute, j'-^' long, with 



thin pale chestnut-brown scales usually reflexed on the margins. Bark of young trees 

 gray or gray tinged with cinnamon-red and broken into small oblong plate-like scales, 

 becoming on the lower part of old trunks f'-lf thick and deeply divided into broad 

 rounded ridges covered with small closely appressed pale gray or occasionally bright cin- 

 namon-red scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, weak, pale brown or often nearly 

 white, with hardly distinguishable sapwood. 



Distribution. Banks of streams or on the first benches above them singly or in small 

 groves at elevations between 6500 and 11,000 above the sea; Colorado and eastern Utah 

 northward to the northern end of the Medicine Bow Mountains and on the Laramie Range 

 in southern and on the Shoshone and Teton Mountains in northwestern Wyoming, and 

 southward into northern New Mexico (Sierra Blanca, alt. 8000-! 1,000, Sacramento 

 Mountains, Pecos River National Forest). 



Often planted as an ornamental tree in the eastern and northern states and in western 

 and northern Europe, especially individuals with blue foliage; very beautiful in early life 

 but in cultivation soon becoming unsightly from the loss of the lower branches. 



6. Picea Breweriana S. Wats. Weeping Spruce. 



Leaves abruptly narrowed and obtuse at apex, straight or slightly incurved, rounded 

 and obscurely ridged and dark green and lustrous on the lower surface, flattened and con- 

 spicuously marked on the upper surface by 4 or 5 rows of stomata on each side of the 

 prominent midrib, |'-lf long, tV-iV wide. Flowers: male dark purple; female oblong- 

 cylindric, with obovate scales rounded above and reflexed on the entire margins, and ob- 

 long bracts laciniately divided at their rounded or acute apex. Fruit ellipsoidal, gradually 

 narrowed from the middle to the ends, acute at apex, rather oblique at base, suspended 

 on straight slender stalks, deep rich purple or green more or less tinged with purple when 

 fully grown, becoming light orange-brown, 2' -4' long, with thin broadly ovate flat scales 

 longer than broad, rounded at apex, opening late in the autumn after the escape of the 



