Picea 1389 



Mr. F. R. S. Balfour, who saw it in the same region, writes to me as follows : — 

 " This alpine spruce covers immense tracts in the Rockies at high altitudes. The 

 finest I have seen are near Lake Louise, where it grows to a height of 

 140 ft, mixed with Abies lasiocarpa. Indeed the two are singularly alike and 

 difficult to distinguish, except for the red drooping cones of the Picea, and the 

 small black erect ones of the Abies. The barks of these trees are very similar, of 

 a grayish red broken into large loose scales. The leaves when crushed have a 

 rather unpleasant smell. Wherever I have seen this tree, it has an arrowy appear- 

 ance from the shortness of its branches. This is doubtless due to the weight of 

 frozen snow which covers them in winter, and prevents lateral growth. The tree 

 often fruits profusely when quite young and small, the leader then becoming bent 

 with the weight of cones surrounding it. These are about two inches long and of a 

 warm crimson when fully grown. The branches are produced in very regular 

 whorls; and when young the bark is smooth and silvery before it becomes 

 scaly." 



This spruce was first distinguished by Dr. C. C. Parry, who found it in 1862 on 

 Pike's Peak in Colorado, and sent seeds in the following year to the Botanic Garden 

 of Harvard University, where the tree was first cultivated. It is said to have been 

 introduced^ into England in 1864 ; but the tree seems quite uncommon in this country. 

 We have found no trees which are probably so old as this, except one at Highnam, 

 which was bearing cones in 1909 and measured 38 ft. by 3 ft. 2 in. The bark of 

 this separates into regular small scales. A thriving tree at Hatfield, Herts, which 

 was planted in 1893, measured 21 ft. by i ft. in 1908. There are smaller trees in 

 the same county at Bayfordbury, High Leigh, and Brickendon Grange. 



(H. J. E.) 



PICEA PUNGENS, Colorado Spruce 



Picea pungens, Engelmann, in Gard. Chron. xi. 334 (1879) and xvii. 145 (1882); Masters, in Gard. 



Chron. xx. 725, fig. 130 (1883), and x. 547, figs. 73, 74 (1891); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 



448 (1900); Britton and Shafer, N. Amer. Trees, 60 (1908); Clinton-Baker, Illust. Conif. ii. 



46 (1909). 

 Picea Parryana, Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 47, t. 600 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 44 (1905). 

 Picea Menziesit, Engelmann, in Trans. St. Louis Acad. ii. 214 (1863) (not Carrifere); Sargent, in 



Bot. Gaz. xliv. 227 (1907). 

 Abies Menziesit, Engelmann, in Amer. Journ. Science, xxxiv. 330 (1862) (not Lindley), and in Gard. 



Chron. vii. 790 (1877); Andre, in Gard. Chron. vii. 562 (1877). 

 Abies Menziesii Parryana, Andre, in Illust. Hort xxiii. 198 (1876), and xxiv. 53, 119 (1877). 



A tree, attaining in America 150 ft. in height and 9 ft. in girth, usually 

 considerably smaller. Bark reddish grey, fissuring on young stems into small 

 oblong plates, on old trunks deeply divided into broad rounded scaly ridges. Young 

 branchlets, stout, rigid, glaucous at first, gradually becoming orange brown. Buds 

 J to I in. long, ovoid, rounded at the apex, with the tips of the upper scales rounded 



1 Veitch, Man. Conif. 69 (1881). 



