III 
PICEH, OR SPRUCE TREES 
(OF THE NATURAL ORDER OF CONIFERA:, oF THE 
GENUS PINACE, oF THE TRIBE ABIETINE, 
OF THE GENUS PICEA) 
INTRODUCTORY 
Yet green are Saco’s banks below, 
And belts of spruce and cedar show 
Dark fringing round these cones of snow. 
WHITTIER, Funeral of the Sokokis. 
Picea is the Latin name given to the family of trees 
more familiarly spoken of as Spruce Firs, and the 
English name accorded can be traced by usually 
employed processes—namely, the searching of dic- 
tionaries and the excavating of derivations—to an 
adjective that implies something natty, smart and 
dandified. While in many instances the various 
species of these Spruce trees, like the Socialists of old 
and to-day, hold ideas as to the possession of certain 
properties in common, they, notwithstanding, contrive 
to draw the line at the participation of other points 
at issue when it happens to suit their particular fancy 
or convenience, or, more correctly speaking in an 
application to trees, the exigencies of their geo- 
graphical situations. 
We will instance some of their features in common. 
Their trunks taper, their crowns are pyramid-shaped, 
and their branches grow in regularly distanced circles 
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