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tant than a plant for a city garden or a small suburban yard this 
tree has proved a failure. It is not surprising for Picea pungens, 
growing in small groves near streams in the valleys of the Rocky 
Mountains of Colorado, long before it attains its full size is a thin, 
scrawny, miserable looking tree wdth a few short branches only 
near the top of the stem. This tree was discovered in 1862; seed was 
planted the following year in the Harvard Botanic Garden, and one of 
the plants raised at that time is still alive in the Arboretum on the 
southern slope of Bussey Hill v/here it is kept as a warning for plant- 
ers who are deceived by the beauty of young plants of the Blue Spruce. 
Picea Engelmannii. This tree as it grows nearly up to the timber 
line of the central Rocky Mountains, where it once formed great for- 
ests, is one of the handsomest of the Spruces with its narrow spire- 
like crown, soft gray-green foliage and tall trunk covered with bright 
red scaly bark. It was also discovered in 1862 and what are probably 
the largest specimens in cultivation are in the Arboretum Pinetum. 
Until two or three years ago these were narrow, perfect pyramids 
with the lower branches resting on the ground; then the lower 
branches began to die gradually without apparent cause. This has 
continued^ and the stems of some of the trees are now bare of 
branches for six or eight feet from the ground, and their beauty as 
specimen trees is ruined. 
Picea canadensis. This, the White Spruce of British North Amer- 
ica, is a very hardy, fast-growing tree here, and is one of the hand- 
somest of the Spruces which can be grown in this region; but the cli- 
mate of eastern Massachusetts is evidently too warm for it and after 
it is thirty or forty years old it becomes thin and unsightly. 
Picea rubra. This is the Appalachian timber Spruce and retains here 
its beauty longer than the White Spruce, for it is a native of Massa- 
chusetts and ranges southward along the mountains to the high Caro- 
lina peaks. It is a handsome tree with dark green leaves, but it 
probably grows more slowly than any other large coniferous tree, and 
it is not easy to establish. For these reasons it will probably never 
be a favorite tree with nurserymen. 
Picea omorika and P. orientalis. These are handsome and hardy 
trees, the former a native of the Balkan peninsula, and the latter of 
the Caucasus. No weakness has yet been found here in these trees 
except that they too often lose their leaders from the attacks of the 
borer which so often destroys the leaders of the White Pine. 
Picea Glehnii. What the future may have in store for this tree here, 
which is a native of northern Japan and Saghalien, no one can predict 
as it has been in cultivation in the Arboretum for only twenty-tw’o 
years. The trees now grow rapidly, are perfectly hardy and show no 
signs of failure of any sort. The best specimens here are now about 
eighteen feet high. 
Picea jezoensis. This is the most widely distributed of the species 
of eastern Asia; ranging as it does from the Amoor region to Man- 
churia, Korea, and to northern and central Japan. This is the only 
Spruce in all that region with flat leaves like those of P. omorika and 
