106 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES 
question dissociates some of them. Of the longer- 
leaved lot we should include— 
In Group I In Group IT 
Smithiana. Excelsa, 
Shrenkiana. Albertiana. 
Pungens, ; 
Polita. In Grovp III 
Bicolor. Engelmannii, 
Of the shorter-leaved lot we should count— 
In Group I { In Group III 
Alba, Nigra. 
Maximowiczii. Rubra, 
Glehnii, 
Orientalis and Obovata, 
In the Omoricas the margins of the plentifully 
found cones, whether they are entire, frayed or jagged, 
and of whatever shape at the apex, tells a talé, but 
rather an obscure one, we own, of their identity. This 
applies also to the Engelmannii, Bicolor, and Pungens 
in the Spruce Group. ‘These cones and those of the 
Sitka; Ajanensis, and Hondoensis, bear a certain 
similitude in appearance, and their scales: seem all 
composed of the same soft, spongy, squeezable, 
light-brown material. Most of the others, like the 
Eupiceze (the Common Spruce, Morinda, etc.), seem 
to be made of a much more leathery and tougher 
dark-brown substance. 
The application of the name Abies to Silver Firs, 
and Picea to Spruces, has b:en a dispute of many 
years’ standing. Whether the one word was—as 
some authorities ‘have’ suggested—derived from the 
Latin word abeo; and used in an ascendant sense, 
“abeunt in nubila montes”’ (as the mountains rise to 
the skies), may or may not be, but if it is so, it is 
and was the Silver Fir that indisputably represented 
