CHARACTERISTICS OF SPRUCE TREES 105 
itself), or terminally as on the Hondoensis, it may 
be said with accuracy that they do not quite assume 
a strict pendulous habit, though they make a good 
try for it: 
These are some of the generic characteristics of 
the Spruces, and now we approach the question 
of the best method of reducing identification 
difficulties. 
There are fifteen of the true Spruces (Eupicea) 
enumerated by Elwes and Henry, for the most part 
recognized and naturalized habitués of Great Britain. 
These fifteen are divided into three groups, consisting 
one of séven, another of two, the third of six. It 
seems as if the determining factor of their arrangement 
was based upon the pubescent condition of their 
branches and branchlets. Thus, the members of 
Group I are returned as glabrous, or non-pubescent. 
One only, the P. Bicolor—we cannot explain his 
presence, we can only apologize for it as a little rift 
within our lute—has slipped into this group without, 
complying with the condition. 
Group III is composed of Spruces whose branchlets 
are all pubescent ; and as between the sheep and the 
goats an intermediate stage of animal life exists, 
known as the alpaca, so also there is between the 
pubescent and non-pubescent Spruces a betwixt-and- 
between couplet, labelled as Group II, and adver- 
tised as equipped only with minute and scattered 
pubescence. 
Pubescence and non-pubescence certainly play the 
most prominent part in the identification process in 
a genus where (unlike the Abies) the roughness or 
smoothness of branchlet, or apex of leaf, of a Spruce 
counts for so little. Colour of leaf may help and 
does help in some cases, since some of the Spruces are 
glaucous green, or even bluish-white, others are of a 
brighter and more yellow hue. The length of, leaf 
