PINE FAMILY 



odor is rather unpleasant and this alone will often suffice to 

 distinguish it from the Black Spruce. No other spruce grows 

 more luxuriantly or is more ornamental in parks and lawns 

 while in the vigor of youth, but as it becomes older it finds 

 the mild climate of the northern states uncongenial and soon 

 perishes or lives on in unsightly decrepitude. Resin exudes 

 from cuts and gashes and hardens into a white gum. 

 * 



RED SPRUCE 

 Plcea rubens. 



A conical evergreen tree usually seventy to eighty feet high, occa- 

 sionally one hundred feet, and upon its northern limit becoming a 

 semi-prostrate shrub. Ranges from Nova Scotia to North Carolina 

 and Tennessee. Grows slowly ; roots thick ; resinous. 



Bark. Reddish brown broken into thin irregular scales. Branch- 

 lets at first stout, pale green, pubescent, later become bright reddish- 

 brown or orange brown, finally becoming dark and scaly. 



Wood. Pale, slightly tinged with red, sapwood paler ; light, soft 

 close-grained, with satiny surface. Used in construction and in 

 production of wood pulp, also for sounding boards of musical in- 

 struments. Sp. gr., 0.4516; weight of cu. ft., 28.13 Ibs. 



Winter Buds. Pale reddish brown, ovate, acute, one-fourth to 

 one-third of an inch long. 



Leaves. Linear, four-sided, tipped at apex with callous point, 

 pale bluish green at first, dark shining green when mature ; midrib 

 prominent ; one-half to five-eighths of an inch long ; they stand out 

 from all sides of the branch, point forward, and are more or less in- 

 curved ; jointed at the base to short, persistent sterigmata. 



Flowers. April, May. Monoecious. Stamiriate flowers oval, 

 almost sessile, one-half inch long ; anther crests bright red, toothed. 

 Pistillate flowers, oblong, cylindrical, three-quarters of an inch long. 

 Scales rounded, thin, erose at margin ; bracts rounded and lacini- 

 ate ; ovules two, naked on base of scale. 



Cones. Ovate-oblong, light reddish brown, shining, apex gradu- 

 ally acute, one and one-quarter to two inches long. Scales rounded, 

 entire or slightly toothed, striate. Seeds dark brown ; wings short 

 and broad. 



The Red Spruce was for many years confounded with the 

 Black Spruce ; Professor Sargent draws a wide distinction 

 between them. 



468 



