PACIFIC SILVEB SPRUCE. 37 



PACIFIC SILVER SPRUCE. 



(Tsuga Pattoniana [Abies Williamscmiil. j 



"Far oil'. indistinct, as of wave, or wind in the forest." — L. 



JTX~*\HYj Silver Spruce,* as its common name par excellence 

 suggests, is by far the most cheerily silvery of all the 

 conifers of the Pacific. The early growth of this species, 

 as seen in the high sierras, say from seven thousand five 

 hundred to ten thousand feet altitude in California, or six 

 thousand feet in Oregon, is elegantly spiry, branching broad- 

 est from the base, often in a decumbently ascending direc- 

 tion, at length outwardly pending tips, and so tapering aloft 

 to the plumy top. The crowded wealth of fasiculoid foliage 

 waves and surges the spray with such wonderful variety that 

 its outline reflects the silvery lights and shadows to the 

 greatest possible advantage. The weight of wintry snows 

 often gracefully curve the base adown the steeps where they 

 cling, thence righting up their recoil, the top compensates 

 by an opposite curve thus gracing this impress of an early 

 life-struggle for existence by another charm — a crowning 

 wreath on the brow of victory. 



The middle sized cones are perfectly symmetrical and 

 smooth, subelliptically cylindroid, from two to three inches 

 long, about three quarters of an inch broad, purple and softly 

 bloom-tinted, they tip singly or in clusters the slender twigs; 

 thus bowing to their weighty burden, they strike you as 

 exquisitely ornamental. These slender branchlets are pubes- 

 cent, leaves from one half to an inch long, convex or keeled, 

 i. e. angled above, rather sharp pointed, narrowed at base 

 and curved, stomatoes on both sides; male flowers about two 

 lines long, on slender thready stems; pollen grains bilobed. 

 blooming in September and October; seeds two and one half 

 lines long, wing about one quarter of an inch, or less than 



* The name " spruce/' as contradistinguished from "fir," in common parlance, 

 implies that the cones pend gracefully down from the tips of the twigs and are 

 distributed over all parts of the tree instead of the top only : and that the scales and 

 their appendages persistently hold together and fall off at once, when ripe, like many 

 pine cones; also, that when the flat two-sided and two-rowed leaves fall off they 

 leave the sharp woody-like base or foot stalk prominent, and no spirally arranged 

 bark-scars as in firs and pines; and as the cones do not stand upright, like birds 

 upon the upper boughs, near the top, and fall to pieces at maturity, of course they 

 leave no naked spindle-shaped woody axis still perched on the place where they 

 grew as the firs do, and the bark never blisters in spruces. In thus defining these 

 common names, as they are and should be used by us, only a few strong points of 

 contrast can be wisely noted — others more technical are intentionally omitted. 



