122 HARDY ON NOVA SCOTIAN CONIFERS. 



reindeer and the moose, whose ancestors have doubtless lived con- 

 temporaries with the mammoth in the earlier period of the Post 

 Tertiary. — " America" says Hugh Miller, " though emphatically the 

 New World in relation to its discovery by civilized man, is, at least 

 in these regions, an old world in relation to geological type, and it 

 is the so called old world that is in reality the new one. 



A. Nigra (Poir), Black Spkuce, Double Spruce. 



Leaves short (^ in. by f in. long) rigid, dark green ; cones ovate or ovate 

 oblong (1 — 1^ in. long) the scale with a thin and -navy eroded edge. A. 

 rubra, a northern form. 



The Black Spruce is one of the most conspicuous and character- 

 istic forest trees of North Eastern America, forming a large portion 

 of the coniferous forest growth and found in almost every variety of 

 circumstance. Sometimes it appears in mixed woods of beautiful 

 growth, of great height and its numerous branches drooping in 

 graceful curves from its apex towards the ground, which they some- 

 times sweep to a distance of twenty to thirty feet from the stem, 

 the summit terminating in a dense arrow head, on the short sprays 

 of which are crowded heavy masses of cones. At others it is found 

 almost the sole growth, covering large tracts of country, the trees 

 standing thick with straight clean stems and but little foliage except 

 at the summit. Then there is the black spruce swamp where the 

 tree shows by its contortions, unhealthy foliage and stem and limbs 

 shaggy with usnea, the hardships of its existence. Again on the 

 open bog* grows the black spruce, scarcely higher than a cabbage 

 sprout — the light olive green foliage living alone on the compressed 

 summit, whilst the grey dead twigs below are crowded Avith pendu- 

 lous moss ; yet even here, amidst the cold sphagnum, Indian cups, 

 and cotton grass, the tree lives to an age Avhich would have given 

 it a proud position in the dry forest. f Lastly in the fissure of a 



*Thc Black Spruce assumes a singular appearance in these swamjis. The 

 tree, seldom exceeding 30 feet in height, throws out its arms in the most tortuous 

 shapes, suddenly terminating in a dense mass of innumerahle branclilets of a 

 rounded contour like a beehive, displaying short, thick, light green foliage. The 

 summit of the tree generally terminates in another bunch. The stem and arms 

 are profusely covered witii lichens and usnea. 



flndeed these groves of miniature trees in bogs where the s]>h;ignuni perpetu- 

 ally bathes their roots with chilling moisture, have a very similar ap])earance tt> 

 Bru.-aels sprouts on a large scale. The water held in the moss is always cold: on 

 May .5th, 18(50, the tus^acs of sphagnum were frozen solidly witliin two or three 



