44 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



brown or gray tinged with brown during their first winter, their bark beginning to 

 separate into small flaky scales in their fourth or fifth year. Winter-buds coni- 

 cal or slightly obtuse, with pale chestnut-brown scales scarious and often free and 

 slightly reflexed on the margins. Bark of the trunk \'^' thick, light cinnamon-red, 

 and broken into large thin loose scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, 

 pale yellow tinged with red, with thick hardly distinguishable sapvvood ; largely manu- 

 factured into lumber used for the construction of buildings; also employed for fuel 

 and charcoal. The bark is sometimes employed in tanning leather. 



Distribution. High mountain slopes, often forming great forests from the moun- 

 tains of Alberta and British Columbia, southward over the interior mountain sys- 

 tems of the continent to northern New Mexico and Arizona, from elevations of 5000 

 at the north up to 11,500 at the south, and westward through Montana and Idaho 

 to the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon; attaining its greatest size 

 and beauty north of the northern boundary of the United States. 



Occasionally planted as an ornamental tree in the New England states and north- 

 ern Europe, where it grows vigorously and promises to attain a large size; usually 

 injured in western Europe by spring frosts. 



-tt-Branchlets glabrous. 



5. Picea Parryana, Sarg. Blue Spruce. 



Leaves strongly incurved, especially those on the upper side of the branch, stout, 

 rigid, acuminate and tipped with long callous sharp points, l'-l|' long on sterile 



branches, often not more 

 than half as long on the 

 fertile branches of old 

 trees, marked on each 

 side by 4-7 rows of sto- 

 mata, dull bluish green 

 on some individuals and 

 light or dark steel-blue 

 or silvery white on oth- 

 ers, the blue colors grad- 

 ually changing to dull 

 blue-green at the end of 

 three or four years. 

 Flowers: staminate yel- 

 low tinged with red ; pis- 

 tillate with broad oblong 

 or slightly obovate pale 



green scales truncate or slightly emarginate at the denticulate apex, and acute bracts. 

 Fruit produced on the upper third of the tree, sessile or short-stalked, oblong- 

 cylindrical, 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 rhomboidal 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 the apex. 



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



