66 
has rarely a greater diameter than two feet. It is a much smaller tree 
therefore than the northern Hemlock. The branches are more pendu- 
lous and the leaves are darker green and more lustrous than those of 
this tree. The leaves, too, are usually notched at the apex and slightly 
toothed, while those of the northern tree are usually rounded at the 
apex and are not toothed. The two trees are, however, best distin- 
guished by their cones; those of the southern tree are not stalked and 
their scales are much longer than broad with obtusely pointed bracts; 
and those of the northern trees are stalked and the scales are about 
as long as wide with bracts broad and truncate at the apex. Many 
persons see and admire the Carolina Hemlock in the Arboretum every 
year, but it is still rare in cultivation, and probably ten thousand Col- 
orado Blue Spruces {Picea pungens) are planted in this country every 
year for one Carolina Hemlock. It is not found in many American 
nurseries, and the price at which it is offered is excessive. 
Picea Engelmannii, which is the common and most widely distrib- 
uted Spruce of the Rocky Mountains, was discovered in Colorado in 
1862 by D. C. C. Parry. Seeds are said to have been sent by him in 
that year to the Harvard Botanic Garden, but there is no record that 
plants were raised there; and it is believed that this tree was first cul- 
tivated in 1879 when seeds were planted in this Arboretum. The En- 
gelmann Spruce grows to its largest size on the mountains of Colorado 
where trees one hundred and fifty feet high with trunks up to five feet 
in diameter have been seen; further north and south the trees are 
smaller. As it grew in great forests which fifty years ago covered 
the slopes of the Colorado mountains up to altitudes of ten thousand 
feet it was with its light cinnamon red bark and narrow pyramidal 
crown of soft light gray-green leaves one of the handsomest, perhaps 
the handsomest of all Spruce-trees. The Engelmann Spruce has grown 
well in the Arboretum, and the tallest trees here are nearly forty feet 
high. For many years the stems were clothed with branches to the 
ground, but four or five years ago the lower branches began to die 
and the trunks of the largest trees arc now naked for a distance of 
seven or eight feet from the ground. The narrow crowns are still per- 
fectly healthy and the trees are growing rapidly. Engelmann ’s Spruce 
is a good ornamental tree to plant in New England, and its hardiness, 
the rapidity of its growth, and the value of the timber it produces may 
make it a valuable tree for forest planting in the northeastern states. 
In western Europe, where Engelmann ’s Spruce suffers from spring 
frosts, it is little known, which is perhaps the reason that it has been 
so little planted in the eastern states for Americans have been often 
too much governed in the selection of trees by what is known of them 
in England. From all points of view Picea Engelmannii is now the 
best Spruce which has been planted in the Arboretum. 
Picea Omorika, the Servian Spruce which was not distinguished until 
1875, was first raised at the Arboretum in 1880 from seeds presented 
to it by the late Dr. Bolle of Berlin. The Arboretum trees are now 
from thirty to forty feet high, with trunks clothed to the ground with 
short branches which form a narrow pyramid clothed with leaves dark 
green and lustrous on the ventral surface and pale on the other. This 
Spruce has proved perfectly hardy here and is one of the handsomest 
