﻿Distinctive Characters of Canadian Spruces. 167- 



variety of the last. The remark is added : Probably these 

 two, with the red spruce, are mere forms of one species. 



In subsequent editions of the same work the descrip- 

 tions are amended, the leaves of nigra being characterized 

 as either dark green or glaucous-whitish, and the cones 

 are said to be recurved, persistent while those of alha are 

 two inches long, nodding, cylindrical, pale, deciduous, the 

 thinner scales with an entire edge (the latter a handsomer 

 tree than the former, more like a balsam fir.) These 

 descriptions point to the red and black spruces being both 

 included under nigra. 



Professor Alphonso Wood, in his Class Book and Flora 

 of the United States and Canada, also characterized only 

 two species : alha, with incurved leaves, cones lax, 

 subcylindric, with entire two-lobed scales ; nigra, with 

 straight leaves, ovoid cones, scales erosely dentate at the 

 edge. 



Dr. Chapman, in the Flora of the Southern United 

 States (1860) likewise gave two species (pp. 434-5) : 

 nigra, leaves dark green, cone one and one-half inch long, 

 ovate, or ovate-oblong, the scales with a thin wavy or 

 denticulate margin ; alha, leaves more slender and less 

 crowded, light green, cones 1 and 2 in. long, oblong 

 cylindrical, with the scales entire. 



The late Prof. Brunet, of Laval University, an acute 

 and careful botanist, of whom Dr. Gray had a high 

 opinion, described three forms : alha, nigra and a variety 

 grisea (Canadian Naturalist, new series, vol. iii., p. 108). 



The Abbe Provancher, in Flore Canadienne, charac- 

 terized alha and nigra clearly. 



The late Andrew Murray, who took so much interest in 

 American Coniferte, in his later writings ignored ruhra. 



Professor Fowler, in his carefully prepared list of 

 the plants of New Brunswick, gives two species, alha and 

 nigra, as common throughout that province. 



Prof. Parlatore, in the Monograph of Conifer ^e in De 



