February 17, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



63 



their peculiar situations in Maine, New Brunswick and 

 other parts of Canada, where they are often known as 

 Water Spruce. On the firm ground adjoining such bogs 

 the same species of tree grows to normal size. 



The cones of the Black Spruce often seem clustered 

 together in bunches, and they usually remain on the trees 

 for several years after they are mature. Sometimes cones 

 of the different seasons for the past twenty or thirty years 

 may be found still persisting on the older trees, generally 

 on the inner ends of the branches near the trunks. The 

 mature cones, which are attached to the twigs by short, 

 stout, recurved stalks, are generally ovate in form and have 

 been well described as plum-shaped. When open they 

 often appear nearly globular in outline. They average 

 nearly an inch in length, but are often much less, and are 

 occasionally as much as an inch and a half long. When 

 young they are of a rosy purple or dark purplish color, 

 changing with age until they are of a duller or more gray- 

 brown color than those of the Red Spruce when both arrive 

 at maturity and the cones open. The scales are rigid, are 

 very thin and often pale-colored at the outer ends, which 

 are sometimes quite narrow, and where they also often 

 seem wrinkled, and the edges are quite distinctly uneven, 

 eroded or notched. The cones do not open so freely as 

 those of the Red Spruce and the scales do not allow the 

 seeds to drop out easily or soon. The Black Spruce is the 

 Muskeag Spruce, described and illustrated from a photo- 

 graph, by Mr. H. B. Ayers, on pages 504 and 505 of the 

 seventh volume of Garden and Forest. 



The Red Spruce (now known as Ficea rubra, and 

 hitherto most frequently called a variety of F. nigra or P. 

 Mariana, as it is now proposed to call P. nigra) is the prin- 

 cipal Spruce timber-tree throughout the maritime provinces 

 and eastern Canada, throughout Maine and the other New 

 England states, New York and Pennsylvania, and extends 

 farther south and west. Under most favorable conditions, 

 as in the Adirondack forests in New York, it may attain a 

 height of considerably over one hundred feet and a diame- 

 ter of trunk of over three feet, although the average size as 

 cut for timber is much less. A count of the annual rings 

 shows the older trees to be more than two hundred and 

 occasionally three or four hundred years old. Interesting 

 tables of heights, diameters, age, etc., of a large number of 

 specimens cut in the Adirondack forest, and excellent pho- 

 tographs, may be found in the Report of the New York 

 State Forest Commission for 1894, where the monograph 

 by Mr. W. F. Fox on the Black Spruce refers to the Red 

 Spruce as now understood, and which is also locally 

 known as Yellow Spruce. On high mountains, at the limit 

 of tree growth, the Red Spruce may be reduced to a low 

 plant scarcely rising above the shelter of the rocks. Grow- 

 ing in the woods the Red Spruce becomes a tall, straight 

 tree without living branches, except on the upper part ; in 

 open places it may grow up symmetrical in form and 

 covered with nearly horizontal branches to the ground. 

 The general color of the foliage is dark yellowish green, 

 varying to dark green, in this respect resembling the com- 

 monly planted Norway Spruce or the Oriental Spruce, 

 Picea orientalis, more than any of our native species. The 

 leaves are either straight, or nearly so, or more commonly 

 decidedly curved or bent and appressed toward the tips of 

 the twigs. The small twigs average stouter than those of 

 the Black Spruce under similar conditions, and they are not 

 so inclined to droop or be so pendulous. The bark of these 

 young twigs is of a brighter reddish brown color and is 

 more or less densely covered with minute brown hairs. 



The ripe cones, before opening, are oblong or oblong- 

 oval in form, the middle, or the upper half stoutest, and 

 tapering to the apex from near the middle, instead of being 

 slender and nearly cylindrical, as are the cones of the 

 White Spruce, or plum-shaped or ovate like those of the 

 Black Spruce, and they have very short curved stalks, 

 shorter-than those of the Black Spruce. They seem to be 

 borne nearer the tips of the branches than the cones of the 

 Black Spruce, and rarely persist on the trees longer than 



the second summer. On different trees the cones may 

 vary from an inch or an inch and a quarter, to two or 

 occasionally nearly two and a half inches in length. They 

 may be green or purplish in the growing condition, but as 

 they become ripe and dry and the scales separate they lose 

 their purplish aspect and change to a bright reddish brown 

 color. The scales at the apex are broad, rounded or rarely 

 obscurely pointed, and they are quite firm and rigid, and 

 have edges entire or only minutely eroded or notched. 



Lambert, in his monograph of the genus Pinus, published 

 in 1803, appears to have given the first unmistakable figure 

 of the Red Spruce, accompanied by a description which is 

 relatively not so good as the figure. To this species, in 

 accordance with the generic classification of the time, 

 Lambert gave the name of Pinus rubra, which was after- 

 ward placed in the genus Picea. As Miller, in his Gardeners' 

 Dictionary (eighth edition, 1768), previously used the name 

 Pinus rubra, and seems to have applied it to Pinus sylves- 

 tris, the Scotch Pine, it is likely that our Red Spruce is to 

 be burdened with another name to conform to rules 

 adopted by some of our botanists. It may be that the 

 name Picea Canadensis, applied to the next species by Dr. 

 Britton, rightfully belongs to the Red Spruce. If the name 

 Picea rubra must be done away with, and if the name P. Can- 

 adensis cannot be applied to this species, perhaps botanists 

 may see the propriety of taking up Muenchhausen's name 

 (Pinus Abies acutissima ; Der Haasvater , vol. v., p. 225, 

 1770) if it is conceded that he was describing the Red 

 Spruce. The species would then become Picea acutissima, 

 a name much less appropriate than the one by which it 

 is now known. Muenchhausen describes the tree as having 

 reddish bark, but otherwise much like the Black Spruce, 

 of which he also considered the Red and White Spruces as 

 possible varieties. He gives as English names of the Red 

 Spruce, "The Red Spruce Firr, or small-coned Virginia 

 Firr, the new Scotia Firr with oblong cones." 



The third Spruce of eastern America is the White Spruce, 

 Picea alba of most botanies, and which may be changed 

 to P. laxa if the name P. Canadensis does not surely belong 

 to this species. It is locally known in New England as the 

 Bog Spruce, Cat Spruce and Skunk Spruce. The last two 

 names have been given on account of the strong peculiar 

 odor of the foliage when rubbed or bruised, or which, in 

 certain states of the atmosphere, may be detected at some 

 distance from the trees. This species is native only in the 

 northern United States and in Canada, extending from the 

 Atlantic coast far westward. 



Dr. Britton, in the Catalogue of Plants groiving ivithin one 

 hundred miles of A T e:v York City, published in 1888, and in 

 his new Flora, has fastened Miller's earlier specific name 

 of Canadensis (Abies Canadensis, Gardeners' Dictionary, 

 eighth edition, 1768) to this species ; but, except for the fact 

 that Miller calls it the "Newfoundland White Spruce Fir," 

 there seems to be no more authority for applying Miller's 

 name to the White Spruce than to the Red Spruce. Indeed, 

 the brief description might apply to either species. More- 

 over, Miller, who did not recognize the Red Spruce as such, 

 also says that his species is used indifferently with the 

 Black Spruce in the manufacture of spruce beer. Now, it 

 is well known that the White Spruce, on account of the 

 strong disagreeable odor already mentioned and the equally 

 unpalatable flavor, is never used in making spruce beer. 

 As what is called White Spruce in many English collections 

 to-day proves to be our Red Spruce, there is good reason to 

 believe that Miller had the latter before him when he wrote 

 his description. In addition to his description he gives a 

 figure of the species in his Figures of Plants, published in 

 1 771 (vol. i., plate 1), and, although very poor, this certainly 

 bears more resemblance to the Black or Red than it does to 

 the White Spruce. In this volume, pagei, he says, "the 

 leaves of the Black sort are whiter on their underside than 

 those of the White," and also that "the White is always 

 found growing naturally on the mountains, and the Black 

 upon the low grounds, generally in bogs or swamps. The 

 first is by much the largest tree. " These comparisons are 



