134^ The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Gilgenberg in the province of East Prussia, and reaches the Gulf of Danzig at 

 Elbing. In southern Germany it is scattered, or in small woods in the plains and 

 valleys, being probably planted ;i and as a wild tree is nearly confined to the 

 mountains, where it occupies a distinct zone, with clearly defined upper and lower 

 limits. The largest pure forests in Germany occur in the Harz mountains, which 

 are almost entirely covered with spruce, ascending to 3300 ft., and in the Iser and 

 Riesen mountains, up to 3900 ft. In the other great forest regions of Germany, as 

 in the Thuringian, Bavarian, and Bohemian forests, the Fichtel and Erz mountains, 

 central Saxony, etc., the spruce, in mixture with the silver fir, covers immense areas. 

 In the province of East Prussia, there are very large forests on the plain, in which 

 the spruce grows in company with the common pine, birch, alder, and willows ; but 

 it is absent on pure sandy soils, where the common pine reigns supreme. 



The spruce is met with throughout the Alps in Switzerland and Italy, ranging 

 in Tessin between 2700 and 6000 feet, and occupying a small outlying area in the 

 Euganean hills in Lombardy, It is quite unknown in the Apennines. 



In A ustro- Hungary, extensive forests of spruce, often almost pure, occur in the 

 Carpathians from Silesia to Bukowina, and in the Transylvanian mountains. The 

 largest spruce recorded" is one which grew in the Carpathians, measuring 226 feet in 

 height and 11^ feet in girth at breast height. 



In the Balkan peninsula^ the spruce reaches its most southerly limit, a line 

 extending from the mountains of northern Albania to the Kopaonik mountain in 

 Servia, whence it is prolonged eastward to the Rhodope mountains in Rumelia about 

 lat. 42°. In Bosnia, Servia, Montenegro, Croatia, and Herzegovina, the spruce 

 usually grows in mixture with the beech and silver fir, occupying a zone on the moun- 

 tains between 3000 and 6000 feet ; but in northern Albania the lower limit rises to 

 4000 ft. Huffel* states that in Roumania, the spruce attains enormous dimensions, 

 a tree, which was cut down in 1888 in the forest of Tarcau, measuring 195 ft. in 

 height by 3 ft. 3 in. in diameter at breast height ; it was 392 years old. The spruce is 

 much less common in Roumania than the silver fir, ascending to 6000 ft. in Wallachia 

 and to 5000 feet in Moldavia ; while in Bukovina the spruce is more abundant than 

 the silver fir, and occupies a zone between 2600 and 5200 ft. 



In Russia the southern limit of the spruce (including P. obovata and P. excelsa) 

 extends from the frontier of Galicia, at lat. 50°, eastwards through northern Volhynia 

 and Starodul in the government of Chernikof, crossing the river Oka at lat. 53° or 54°, 

 to the southern boundary of the government of Kazan. From this northwards to the 

 Arctic circle, the spruce is prevalent ; but the exact boundary of the two species is 

 unknown. So far as I have seen specimens, the spruce in Finland and near St. 

 Petersburg is P. obovata, which all authors agree is the only spruce found in north- 

 eastern Russia, as nothing like P. excelsa is seen to the eastward of the rivers Dwina 



1 It is supposed never to be native in situations below 1300 ft., though it thrives when planted. Left to nature the 

 beech speedily supplants it on all soils at low elevations in southern Germany. 



2 Wessely, quoted by Mathieu, Fl. Forestiire, 541 (1897). I have not been able to verify this record; but Schroter and 

 Kirchner, op. at. 115 (1906) state that Enderlin measured in the Orisons two trees as follows :— one, 143 ft. high, 6 ft 3 in 

 in diameter, with a volume of 1300 cubic feet ; the other, 1 52 ft. high, 4 ft. u in. in diameter, with a volume of 1 1 50 cubic feet. 



Beck von Mannagetta, Veg. lUyrisch. Land. 287 (1901). 

 ' Extrait Bull. Minist. Agric. Paris, 1890, p. 6. 



