﻿Distinctive Characters of Canadian Spruces. 173' 



down, and so on, the cones diminishing in quantity down- 

 wardly as their age is increased. The cone is attached to 

 its branchlets by a curved stalk (whereas that of P. alba is 

 straight), and the cone itself is conspicuously much wider 

 in the middle than towards base or apex ; several of these 

 differences are taken from Dr. Bell's notes, but are 

 entirely in accordance with my own observations. 



This species appears to be widely distributed, both 

 in coast and inland districts, extending apparently far 

 north, and in the south ascending the mountains. Black 

 spruce is famed among lumbermen as a tree yielding 

 sound, strong and lasting timber. In Nova Scotia it 

 is found, not on dry ground, but on wet fiats, apparently 

 irrespective of atmospheric moisture. In inland districts, 

 groves of it occur in the red spruce forests, on the wet 

 lands around lakes, and aloncr river sides, and on shelving: 

 terraces on the hill sides, but it also grows down to 

 the sea-shore intermixed with P. alba — the favoring 

 condition apparently being a retentive moist soil. In the 

 north and north-west, the tree appears, from accounts and 

 photographs received, to be more vigorous than along the 

 Atlantic region of Nova Scotia. 



3. PiCEA RUBRA, Link, in Linnaea, xv., p. 521. 



Picea rubra, the red spruce, is readily known by its 

 clean, uniform bark (not broken into large scales) of a 

 distinctly reddish color, by its long, slender shoots, giving 

 it the appearance of being a more rapid grower than 

 nigra, but not so robust in habit as alba, and by its bright 

 green foliage, without any trace of hoariness or glau- 

 cescence. The leaves, as compared with those of the 

 allied species, are short, incurved, not so secundly as in 

 alba, but bent inwards towards the branchlets, and on the 

 leading shoots they are more or less closely appressed 

 to the leader, giving it a very elongated slender appear- 

 ance. The year's shoots are of a lively chestnut-red color, 

 and are beset with short, erect, thickish, curved, epidermal 



