Picea 1377 



It is common in cultivation and usually sold in nurseries under the name of 

 blue spruce, but it never attains large dimensions and is of no economic importance. 

 It has been recommended for planting in boggy and marshy situations, but is always 

 much surpassed in growth by Picea sitchensis, and seems to be a short-lived tree in 

 this country. 



One of the best specimens we know of is the one figured in Plate 346, which 

 grows on the north edge of a plantation of common spruce at Lyde, near Colesborne, 

 on my property. This tree has been favoured by a moist clay soil, a sheltered 

 position and a cold damp climate ; and has attained at about fifty-five years old a 

 height of 56 ft. with a girth of 2 ft. 10 in. As the figure (Plate 346) shows, it has 

 become self-layered under the shade of a hedge, which was cut away to show it ; 

 and one of the lower branches has already attained half the height of the parent 

 stem. Though it has not increased much in the last ten years, this tree is in good 

 health, but several others, planted at the same time on dry land, are not half the 

 size and dead or dying. As usual in England it bears cones in abundance near the 

 top of the tree. I have seen a tree at Woburn about 60 ft. by 4|- ft. ; and there 

 is one at Merton which was about 40 ft. by 5 ft. 10 in. in 1905. 



In the west of Scotland it grows well, but so far as we have seen never attains 

 a large size; the tallest recorded^ in Scotland in 1891 was 46 ft. by 3 ft. 5 in. at 

 Mount Stuart. Of the numerous trees planted in two groups in 1832 at Keillour, 

 Perthshire, at the lower end of a peat-bog, Henry only found a few surviving in 

 1904, none exceeding 40 ft. in height. At Dawyck, a tree was 37 ft. by 2\ ft. in 

 1911. 



In Ireland the best we have seen was measured by Henry at Fota in 1903, 

 when it was 60 ft. by 4 ft. 10 in. (H. J. E.) 



PICEA RUBRA, Red Spruce 



Picea rubra. Link, in Linnaa, xv. 521 (1841) (not Dietrich «) ; Gorrie, in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. x. 



353 (1870); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 450 (1900); Sargent, in Bot. Gaz. xliv. 226 (1907); 



Clinton-Baker, Illust. Conif. ii. 47 (1909). 

 Picea nigra, Link, var. rubra, Engelmann, in Gard. Chron. xi. 334 (1879). 

 Picea rubens, Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 33, t. 597 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 41 (1905)- 

 Pinus rubra, Lambert, Genus Pinus, i. 43 (1803) (not Miller 3). 

 Picea acutissima. Jack, in Garden and Forest, x. 63 (1897). 

 Abies rubra, Poiret, in Lamarck, Diet. vi. 520 (1804); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2316 (1838). 



A tree, attaining in America 100 ft. in height and 9 ft. in girth. Bark, 

 branchlets, and buds, similar to P. nigra. Leaves yellowish or dark green, not 

 glaucous, about | in. long, incurved, acute or rounded at the apex, quadrangular 

 in section, marked on each of the two upper sides by about four stomatic lines, and 

 on each of the two lower sides by two to three stomatic lines. 



1 Joum. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 506 (1892). 



2 Picea rubra, Dietrich, Fl. Bcrol. ii. 795 (1824) is the common European spruce, Picea exceha. 



3 PiHus rubra. Miller, Gard. Diet. No. 3 (I79S) is the common European pine, Pinus sylvestrts. 



