88 THE CULTIVATED EVERGREENS 



Engelmann and Sitka spruces, and also the white, in western 

 Canada. Of these, the most ornamental are the white and the 

 Engelmann. The following species are given in order of their 

 relative value as ornamental trees, beginning with the most 

 useful. 



White spruce, Picea glauca, is wild in every province in 

 Canada, and is particularly useful in the prairie provinces 

 where so few evergreens are hardy. It is a rapid-growing tree 

 of attractive form. The foliage of the bluest specimens almost 

 rivals that of the bluest forms of the Colorado spruce and, if 

 it were not for the serious insect pests which attack it in eastern 

 Canada, it would be the best spruce to plant for ornamental 

 purposes, but it is frequently rendered very unsightly by 

 attacks of the spruce gall-louse and budworm. 



Black spruce, Picea mariana, is a much slower grower than 

 the white and is more upright. It is wild mainly in the swampy 

 lands of eastern Canada and in the prairie provinces northward. 

 Though not nearly as attractive as an ornamental tree as the 

 white spruce, its characteristic form and persistent cones give 

 variety and, being very hardy, it is also useful in the coldest 

 parts of Canada. The var. Doumetii is a pyramidal sort of 

 striking color. 



Red spruce, Picea rubra, is seldom met with as an orna- 

 mental tree, as it is not nearly so attractive as the white spruce 

 with which it grows in eastern Canada. The leaves have 

 none of the bluish tinge which makes the white spruce so 

 attractive and it resembles the Norway spruce in color, al- 

 though not so graceful a tree as that variety. 



For nearly thirty years the Engelmann spruce, Picea Engel- 

 manni, succeeded well at Ottawa and has now reached a 

 height of about thirty feet, but the leaves and branches are 

 dying from the base up and the trees are becoming very un- 



