308 DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY. 



Use. — The white spruce is a favorite with nurserymen and amateurs, for 

 planted grounds. The wood is stroug, and makes excellent lumber for build- 

 ing purposes, and is largely used for floor planks. 



3. P. excelsa, Link. (Norway Spruce.) Trunk 80 to 150 feet high, branched 

 profusely. As the branches lengthen, the weight of their ends causes them 

 more and more to assume a horizontal position, and finally to droop. Leaves 

 elongated, and though scattered assuming a semi two-ranked arrangement, 

 quadrangular. Cones cylindrical, terminal, and pendent, sometimes 8 inches 

 long and 2 in diameter ; scales broad, apex projecting and notched ; seed 

 small, one eighth of an inch in length, and half as broad, witli a wing. Coty- 

 ledons 7 to 9. Flowers in May, and the cones ripen the following year in the 

 spring. 



This tree sports freely, and there are about a dozen well-marked varieties, 

 by the use of which the nurserymen and amateurs are enabled to produce 

 varied effects in planted grounds. 



Geographxj. — The Norway spruce is indigenous throughout northern and 

 middle Europe, and on the northern declivities of the mountains of southern 

 France and Spain. A^ast forests on the Alps, at an elevation of nearly 7,000 

 feet, are wholly composed of the Norway spruce ; but it is said to attain its 

 perfection in the forests of Norway, its home and the country from which it 

 derives its common name, where it is the grand monarch of the woods. It is 

 propagated in America from seeds brought from Europe, formerly from 

 Norway. It grows to its full size in deep, damp soils. 



Etijinology. — The specific name of this tree, excelsa, is the Latin for lofty, 

 and usually relates to excellence in rank or character, not to size or height ; 

 but in its application to this fine tree, it seems to have been used with 

 the latter signification. 



Use. — On account of its hardness and the symmetrical head it forms, its 

 beautiful deep green, and the patience with which it bears the knife, the 

 Norway spruce has become the most popular and the standard evergreen in 

 our nurseries and in planted grounds, for ornamental purposes. In Europe, 

 though not in America, its wood is used for architectural purposes. The wood 

 is light, elastic, durable, and of a yellowish-white color. It is charged with 

 resin, which is the base of Burgundy pitch. The young trees are cut when 

 six to ten inches in diameter, and used by builders for scaffolding. The larger 

 trees are sawed into planks for flooring. On account of its elasticity and 

 sonorousness it enters into the structure of musical instruments, — especially 

 of the backs of violins and of piano sounding-boards. Cabinet makers line 

 furniture Avith it, and it is largely used for boxes for packing merchandise. 

 It is fine-grained, takes a good polish, receives a black stain well, and is es- 

 pecially suitable for picture-frames and other articles that are gilded. It is 

 also highly prized by carvers for their purposes. 



ABIES, Link. (Fir.) Flowers monoecious ; aments in terminal or 

 nearly terminal clusters ; scales of the cones thin and flat ; seeds 

 v\ inged. Leaves solitary, and without sheaths at the base, scattered, 

 bearing a slight scar, linear, flat above. Staminate flowers solitary 

 in the axils, the connective being barely prominent above the 

 anthers. Scales of the erect cone deciduous with the seeds, the sub- 

 tending bract conspicuous, but not thickened nor prickly tipped, often 

 equalling or exceeding the ovuliferous scale. 



