178 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



year being near the top of the tree mostly, the previous years next 

 below, that of the year before further down, and so on, the cones- 

 diminishing in quantity downwardly as their age is increased. The- 

 cone is attached to its branchlets by a curved stalk (whereas that of 

 P. alba is sti-aight), 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 distiicts, 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 flats, apparently irrespec- 

 tive of atmospheric moisture. In inland districts, groves of it occur 

 in the red spruce forests, on the wet lands around lakes, and along 

 river sides, and on shelving terraces on the hill sides, but it also 

 grows down to the sea-shore intermixed with F. alba — the favoi'ing 

 condition apparently being a retentive moist soil. In the north and 

 north-west, the ti'ee appears, from accounts and photographs received, 

 to be more vigorous than along the Atlantic i-egion of Nova Scotia. 



3. PiCEA RUBRA, Link, in Linnsea, 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 moie 

 rapid grower than nigra, but not so robust in habit as alba, and by 

 its bright green foliage, without any trace of hoariness or glaucescence. 

 The leaves, as compared with those of the allied species, are short, 

 incurved, not so secundly as in alba, but bent inwards towards th& 

 branchlets, and on the leading shoots they are more or loss closely 

 appressed to^^the leader, giving it a very elongated slender appearance. 

 The year's shoots are of a lively chestnut-red color, and are be.set with 

 short, erect, ihickish, curved, epidermal processes (trichomes), wliich 

 arise especially around the edges of the flat basal plates of the leaf- 

 bases, variously called peg-processes, sterigmata, etc. The cones 

 are of a bright chestnut color, regidarly ovate in form. The- 

 wood is softer than that of the Vjlack spruce, it is also less enduring 



