482 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 511. 



Blue Spruce, is a tree of more restricted range, being con- 

 fined to Colorado, eastern Utah, and Wyoming, growing 

 only along the banks of streams in small isolated groves 

 at elevations between six and nine thousand feet. This 

 species may be distinguished from Engelmann's Spruce by 

 its pale, deeply furrowed bark, which is unusual in this 

 genus, by its stouter glabrous branchlets and thicker rigid 

 sharp-pointed leaves, bright blue on some plants and dull 

 gray-green on others, and by its larger cones. As it appears 

 in Colorado, Picea Parryana is a far less beautiful tree 

 than Picea Engelmanni. The lower branches are soon 

 overshadowed by those above them and then quickly die, 

 and trees more than fifty feet high are usually thin and 

 ragged in the tops. This Colorado Spruce has proved 

 very hardy on the Atlantic seaboard, where it has been 

 largely disseminated by nurserymen, and young plants are 

 surprisingly vigorous and very handsome. The lower 

 branches on the oldest specimens cultivated here, however, 

 are already beginning to die, and there is every prospect 

 that this Spruce will prove a failure as an ornamental tree. 

 Among the seedlings raised from Dr. Parry's first seeds is a 

 dwarf form which is still less than three feet in height and 

 a handsome broad round-topped bush. 



Neither of the Pacific coast Piceas has succeeded in the 

 eastern states. Of these the Sitka, or Tidewater Spruce 

 (Picea Sitchensis), is the largest of all Spruce-trees and one 

 of the most majestic and beautiful of our conifers. The 

 second Pacific Spruce (Picea Breweriana, see Garden and 



Forest, vol. iii. , figs. 15, 16 



v., fig. 102) is remarka- 



ble in its pendant branches and long slender snake-like 

 branchlets. Young plants of this tree, which is known 

 only in a few isolated groves on the mountains of northern 

 California and southern Oregon, have been successfully trans- 

 planted by Mr. A. J. Johnson into his nursery at Astoria, 

 Oregon ; and others may be seen in gardens in Portland. 

 The efforts which have been made to raise Brewer's Spruce 

 from seeds, however, in the eastern states and in Europe have 

 not been successful, as the seedlings have an unfortunate 

 habit of damping off as soon as they appear above the sur- 

 face of the ground ; and a few small grafted plants in the 

 Arnold Arboretum are probably the only representatives of 

 this interesting tree in the eastern states. 



Japan is rich in species of Picea which, except in the 

 extreme western and northern parts of Yezo, do not grow 

 gregariously in great forests, as they often do in other 

 parts of the woild, but are scattered, usually singly, 

 among the deciduous-leaved trees. The Japanese Spruces 

 which have been the longest tried in our gardens are 

 Picea polita and Picea Ajanensis. The former is a tree 

 with stout rigid sharp-pointed yellow-green leaves, in- 

 teresting in the fact tliat in our climate it begins to 

 grow later in the spring than any of the other Spruces. 

 This tree has been cultivated in the eastern states 

 for twenty-five or thirty years and is very hardy in 

 eastern Massachusetts, where there are a number of 

 shapely specimens which have produced cones abun- 

 dantly for a number of years. I should have considered 

 this Spruce a most promising ornamental tree if I had not 

 seen it in the forests of Japan. Perhaps it grows more 

 thriftily in other parts of the empire, but on the Nikko 

 Mountains near Lake Chuzengi, which is the only place 

 where I saw it, Picea polita was small, stunted, and mis- 

 erable in appearance with thin tops and short ragged 

 branches. 



Picea Ajanensis is usually found in our gardens under 

 the name of Picea Alcockiana, a tree with four-sided 

 leaves which grows only on the mountains of central 

 Hondo, where it is rather local, while Picea Ajanensis is 

 one of the flat-leaved species and appears to be widely 

 spread over north-eastern Asia, from Japan to Manchuria. 

 I did not see this tree in Hondo, but in Yezo it is the com- 

 mon Spruce, forming forests in the western part of the 

 island on low swampy ground not much raised above the 

 surface of the ocean, and growing in the central districts 

 usually singly among deciduous-leaved trees on low rocky 



hills. This is also the common Spruce-tree of Saghalin 

 and the Manchurian coast. In the eastern United States 

 where there are cone-bearing plants of Picea Ajanensis 

 twenty-five or thirty feet in height, it is hardy, fast-grow- 

 ing and very handsome, with well - developed lower 

 branches, and numerous branchlets clothed with leaves 

 which are dark green and lustrous on one surface and 

 glaucous white on the other. In early spring this tree 

 is very conspicuous from the bright red color of the 

 young branchlets when they first emerge from the buds. 

 So far as I have been able to observe the true Picea 

 Alcockiana, which should, perhaps, be called P. bicolor, has 

 not succeeded in the United States and I have seen only 

 very small plants here. Picea Glenhi, the fourth Japanese 

 Spruce, first discovered on Saghalin, reaches southern 

 Yezo and is possibly only a geographical form of the 

 Siberian Picea obovata. A large number of plants of 

 this species has been raised in the Arnold Arboretum, 

 but they are still too small to give any idea of the value 

 of this tree in our climate. 



The curious dwarf Spruce considered by Maximowicz as 

 a variety of Picea obovata (var. Japonica) but usually cul- 

 tivated under its first name, Picea Maximowiczii, is per- 

 fectly hardy in the neighborhood of Boston. It is a bushy 

 plant (the largest specimen in Mr. Hunnewell's pinetum is 

 now from five to six feet in height) with slender cinnamon- 

 brown glabrous twigs clothed with remote needle-shaped 

 dark green four-sided acute leaves spreading in all direc- 

 tions nearly at right angles to the branch. This plant was 

 first raised from seeds distributed about thirty years ago 

 from the Botanic Garden of St. Petersburg. Nothing 

 appears to be known of it in a wild state, and it has been 

 suggested that it is a monstrous or juvenile form of some 

 other species. As a curiosity Picea Maximowiczii is worth 

 a place in collections of conifers. The beautiful Hima- 

 layan Spruce-tree (Picea Smithiana), which is one of the 

 largest of the genus, is widely scattered over the mountain 

 ranges of northern India at elevations between six and 

 eleven thousand feet above the sea-level, and is hardy in a 

 young state, at least, in sheltered positions in the middle 

 states. 1 have not seen large trees in this country. 



Picea orientalis from the slopes of the Taurus and the 

 Caucasus is one of the handsomest, hardiest and most val- 

 uable of the exotic conifers introduced into our gardens, 

 where it has now been successfully grown for nearly fifty 

 years. It is a large tree of dense narrow pyramidal habit 

 with dark green lustrous rigid leaves which are so closely 

 pressed against the branchlets that these appear more 

 slender than those of other Spruce-trees. Beautiful speci- 

 mens of the Oriental Spruce may be seen in the neighbor- 

 hood of Philadelphia, in the old Parsons Nursery at 

 Flushing, Long Island, and in Mr. Hunnewell's pinetum. 

 So far as it is safe to form an opinion based on an experi- 

 ence of only fifty years it would appear wise to plant the 

 Oriental Spruce much more frequently in this country than 

 has been done. 



The third European species, Picea Omorika, an inhabi- 

 tant of the mountains of Servia, Bosnia and Montenegro, is 

 interesting in its resemblance to the Pacific Picea Sitchen- 

 sis and some species of north-western Asia in the character 

 of its leaves, and in the fact that it was discovered only a 

 few years ago. This Spruce, which is described as a 

 large tree in its native forests, has proved hardy in the 

 neighborhood of Boston, where there are now several 

 plants five or six feet in height. Here it is attractive in its 

 good habit and in the color of the leaves which are straight, 

 flat, linear-oblong, obtuse and rounded at the apex, from 

 one-half to three-quarters of an inch in length, green and 

 lustrous on one surface and pale on the other. 



c. s. s. 



Nature uses actual beauty only as a luxury ; for occasional 

 and sparing adornment, sometimes a little while in profusion, 

 but never making it a lasting feature of any prominent ob- 

 jects. — Halcyon Days. 



