SPRUCE. 



(^Picea.) 



The spruces form forests in Europe and North America. 

 Tlie black spruce {P. nigra) and the white spruce (/"- alba) 

 predominate in eastern United States, while the white spruce 

 {P. engelmanni) is important in the West. The Norway 

 spruce, or white fir (/* excelsa), is the chief European species. 

 American trees prefer Northern ranges characterized by short 

 summers and long winters. 



The soft, light, clean woods resemble and are probably the 

 best substitute for soft pine. They are apt to warp and twist 

 in seasoning and so are not good for posts and trusses. Spruce 

 is the principal wood in New England for studding and floor- 

 joists. The product is divided commercially and according to 

 appearance, but irrespective of species, into white and black 

 spruce. These terms depend sometimes, at least, on the 

 wide and narrow rings of the black spruce (P. nigra). It 

 should be remembered that spruce and fir woods are often 

 confused with one another, and that there are trees, as the 

 Douglas spruce and Kauri pine or spruce, that are called, but 

 are not, true spruces. European spruce is often locally known 

 as white deal. 



Spruce trees have single, sharp-pointed, short leaves, 

 pointing everywhere, and keeled above and below so as to 

 appear four-sided; the cones hang down. Spruce may be dis- 

 tinguished from the pines, firs, and hemlocks by the fact that 

 pine leaves are longer and in clusters, that hemlock leaves are 

 flat, blunt, and two-ranked, and that fir cones point upward. 

 The genus picea has twelve species, five of which are North 

 American. The resins of the black and red spruce are used 

 as confections. 



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