﻿166 Canadian Record of Science. 



cone long-stalked, cylindrical or ovoid oblong, 2 to 2J 

 inches long, largest diameter, | inch, scales quite entire, at 

 first green, changing to pale brown) ; rubra, cones ovate- 

 oblong, scales split into two lobes, margin otherwise quite 

 entire (doubtfully distinct from the next, leaves more 

 acute, cones larger, green when young, scales constantly 

 and evidently split-lacerate irregularly, margin otherwise 

 entire, the wood becoming reddish) ; nigra, cones ovate- 

 acute, scales obovate, undivided, erose, denticulate, bark 

 blackish, faces of leaves white-dotted ; cones shortly 

 peduncled, drooping, an inch and a half long, at first 

 purpurascent, finally reddish brown, scales with thin 

 margins becoming undulate-lacerate. 



Professor Beck, in the Botany of the Northern and 

 Middle States (1833), which formed the precursor of Dr. 

 Asa Gray's standard Manual, described three species 

 (p. 340), as : nigra, * * * leaves straight, strobile 

 ovate, scales elliptical, undulate on the margin, erosely 

 denticulate at the apex ; rubra, * * * strobile 

 oblong, scales rounded, somewhat two-lobed, entire on the 

 margin ; alba, leaves incurved, strobile subcylindrical, 

 loose, scales obovate, very entire. 



I have not been able to refer to the first edition of Dr. 

 Gray's Manual of Botany of the Northern United States 

 (published in 1848), but in the second edition (1856) the 

 red spruce of Beck is dropped, and only nigra and alba 

 described — the former with dark rigid sharp green leaves, 

 cones ovate, or ovate-oblong (one to one and a half inch 

 long), the scales with a thin and wavy or eroded edge — a 

 common variety in New England having lighter colored or 

 glaucous-green leaves rather more slender and loosely 

 spreading, and indistinguishable from alba except by 

 the cones. A. alba is characterized as having oblong- 

 cylindrical cones (one t(5 two inches long), the scales with 

 firm and entire edges ; otherwise as in the lighter-colored 



