REPORT OF STATE BOTANIST, 1 897 283 
This small spruce has hitherto been deemed a form of the com¬ 
mon black spruce, but in my opinion it is worthy of specific dis¬ 
tinction. It is smaller than that species and has smaller leaves, which 
are commonly glaucous and less curved, smaller cones and much 
smaller seeds. The seeds are about half as long as the seeds of the 
black spruce and the seedwing is also about half as long as the 
seedwing of that tree. The twigs are pubescent and the sterigmata 
are glabrous or slightly pubescent. The cones are oval and their 
scales are eroded on the edge. While immature they are wholly 
purple or green with a purple margin. The tree is scarcely more 
than 20 or 30 ft high, and bears cones when only 4 or 5 ft high. 
The cones are 8 to 12 lines long, the leaves 2 to 5 lines long, the 
seed about 1 line and its wing about 2 lines long. 
It inhabits swamps and open bogs, bears its flowers in June and 
matures its fruit in September or October. 
A small, half-prostrate, shrub-like spruce occurs on the exposed 
summits of the high peaks of the Adirondack mountains. Its leaves 
are short and glaucous and on this account it has been considered a 
variety of this species. For convenience of reference I have named 
it variety semiprostrata. It does not bear fruit and is probably a 
mere form due to the peculiar and unfavorable character of its place 
of growth. 
Raphidostegium Jamesii L. & J. 
Trunks of trees. Adirondack mountains. August. Mrs E. G. 
Britton. 
Lepiota acerina n. sp. 
Pileus convex, dry, floccose-squamulose, pale tawny or subalu- 
taceous, brownish and subumbonate in the center; lamellae thin, 
close, free, pallid, pruinose when dry; stem equal, stuffed or hollow, 
floccose-squamulose below the obsolete ring, colored like the pileus; 
spores oblong or narrowly elliptic, very blunt or subtruncate at 
one end, .0003 to .00045 in. long, .00016 to .0002 broad. 
Pileus 8 to 12 lines broad; stem 1 to 1.5 in. long, about 2 lines 
thick. 
Prostrate mossy trunks of sugar maple, Acer Saccharnm. North 
Elba, Essex county. August. 
