﻿Distinctive Characters of Canadian Spruces. 165 



names, and thus adapted their nomenclature to continental 

 custom and classical usage. Among English foresters, 

 gardeners and nurserymen, however, the old way, so long 

 familiar, will be given up slowly, and not without regret. 



The Canadian spruces, so far as regards their distinctive 

 specific characters, have been a puzzle to botanists. They 

 were not known to Linna3us. Miller and Alton recog- 

 nized two species, alba and nigra, and Lambert introduced 

 a third (rubra) that had been recognized by the younger 

 Michaux as a variety of nigra. Accordingly, in most 

 of the works on Coniferse published since Lambert's 

 (1825) by European and English botanists,^ we find the 

 three species described without hesitation. But there 

 have not been wanting expressions of doubt as to the 

 permanent distinctness of the third species, and of 

 suspicion even, that all three were connected by inter- 

 mediate forms so closely as to be doubtfully entitled 

 to rank as more than varieties of one species. A full 

 statement of synonymy would occupy too much space, 

 and, indeed, be out of place in this publication • a brief 

 indication of the views held by a few prominent botanists 

 will suffice for the present. 



In Persoon's Synopsis Plantarum, 1807 (the authorship 

 of which is believed to belong to Eichard), ritbra is 

 described with rubicund cones, slightly bilobed scales, and 

 red brown bark, and is curiously enough assigned 

 geographically to Hudson Strait ; alba, with incurved 

 leaves, lax subcylindrical cones, entire scales, whitish 

 bark ; nigra, with straight leaves, ovate black-purple 

 cones, scales undulated at the margins, bark blackish. 



Endlicher, in the standard work on Coniferse for the 

 time (1847), "Synopsis Coniferarum," characterized three 

 species as follows : (pp. 112-15) ; alba, cones subcylindrical, 

 lax, pendulous, scales broadly obovate undivided, entire 

 (faces of leaves whitened glaucous, pulvinuli pale brown, 



1 Persoon, Antoine, Don, Loudon, Link, Parlatore, Endlicher, Gordon, etc. 



