538 EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS. 
THE SPRUCE FIRS. Abies. 
For the reader not familiar with botany, the general distinction 
between the pines proper, and the firs, is, that the latter generally 
have shorter leaves attached all round the twigs, or occasionally on 
two sides, and the trees are more uniformly conical in form. This 
meagre mention of their differences can, of course, convey no 
valuable idea of the obvious diversity of characteristics which they 
present to the eye. 
The firs are subdivided into two great classes, the Abies, or 
spruce firs, and the Piceas , or silver firs. 
Gordon, author of “ The Pinetum,” describes the Abies botani- 
cally, as follows: “ Leaves solitary, four-sided, and scattered all 
round the shoots, or flat, and more or less in two rows laterally. 
Flowers, male and female on the same plant, but separate. Cones 
pendant, solitary, and terminal, with thin persistent scales.” 
The White Spruce Fir. Abies alba .—This is a light-colored 
thin-foliaged tree with horizontal branches; growing wild in the 
northern border of our country, in the Canadas, and north to the 
Arctic Sea. Height fifty feet; diameter of the trunk seldom more 
than eighteen inches. “ The bark is lighter colored than that of 
any other spruce; the leaves are also less numerous, longer, more 
pointed, at a more open angle with the branches, and of a pale 
bluish-green ” (Loudon). Cones pendulous, one and three-quarters 
to four inches long, and five-eighths to six-eighths broad. We are 
not certain of having seen this variety fairly grown in open ground. 
There is much confusion existing between this and the intermediate 
varieties of the black and red spruces. The white spruce has 
probably not had a fair trial in cultivated grounds. Growing wild 
it is certainly a thin, meagre-foliaged tree, decidedly inferior to 
the black spruce or the Norway spruce. Grown thriftily in open 
ground, perhaps it may develop some beauty. There are two 
pretty dwarfs of this species: the Abies alba nana, which forms a 
dense spreading bush three or four feet high • and the hedge-hog 
white spruce, Abies alba minima, which is much smaller—almost 
too small to be useful. 
