THE SPRUCE FIR. 
155 
The timber, which has an irregular grain, is strong, and 
does not warp; but it is soft, and not enduring where it is 
exposed to the weather. It is yellowish-white in colour, and 
is largely used for all interior work. 
The Spruce Fir {Picea excclsa). 
Although we are compelled to class the Spruce among intro- 
duced species, it can lay claim to have been one of the older 
forest trees of Britain, for the upper beds of the Tertiary 
formations contain abundant evidence that the Spruce was a 
native here when those strata were laid down. Of its modern 
introduction there is no record, but from mention of it by Turner 
in his “ Names of Herbes in Greke, Latin, Englishe, etc.,” we 
know that it was at some date anterior to the publication of that 
work (1548). It is widely distributed as a native tree throughout 
the continent of Europe, with the exception of Denmark and 
Holland. It is the principal forest tree on the elevated tracts of 
Germany and Switzerland, and on the central Alpine ranges it 
reaches an altitude of 6500 feet. It is an extremely variable 
tree, but we cannot here deal with the varieties beyond saying 
that two principal forms, different in habit and in timber, are 
outwardly distinguished by one having red, the other green, 
cones. 
The Spruce Fir is a tall and graceful tree with tapering trunk, 
120 to 150 feet in height, though in this country its more usual 
stature, when full-grown, would be about 80 feet high, with a 
bole circumference of about 9 feet. At first covered with 
thin, smooth, warm-brown bark, in later life this breaks up into 
irregular scales, thin layers of which are cast off. Instead of a 
bushy crown, such as we see in the Silver Fir, the Spruce ends 
in a delicate spire, so familiar in the Christmas-tree, which is a 
Spruce Fir in the nursery stage. The branches are in very 
