Weeping Spruce (Picea Breweriana, Wats.)—Tree 75 to 125 feet high, with swollen base and tapering shaft; branches drooping and crowded, to the ground; twigs remarkably long and slender. Bark brick red, thin, scaly. Wood soft, close grained, satiny, pale brown, heaviest of native spruces.
Buds conical, small, scaly, brown. Leaves flattened on the upper side only, blunt, pale above, dark green and lustrous beneath, i to ti inches long. Flowers: staminate rich purple; pistillate oblong; scales broad, rounded, turning out at edge, with cut-toothed bract under each. Fruit slender cones, 2 to 4 inches long, tapering, stalked, purple turning to orange-brown, opening in autumn, but hanging a year empty; scales broad, entire, thin, turning backward; seeds winged. Preferred habi tat, dry ridges on mountains near timber line. Distribution, elevation 4,000 to 7,000 feet, California and Oregon. In isolated groves in coast ranges.
It is somewhat embarrassing to the hard-working horticul turist in the East to be asked his opinion of the weeping spruce.
He regards it as one of the most distinct of the spruces, admirable in habit and beautiful in foliage—an ideal tree for ornamental plantingLbut he cannot make it grow! His most careful efforts have brought only failure. A tree that belongs to "dry mountain ridges and peaks near the timber line " has a good excuse for languishing in gardens on the wrong side of the continent. And such a range puts the species out of reach of lumbermen for a decade or two yet. The uses of this tree must be put down with out reference to man's ineffectual yearnings to claim it for his own. It fulfils Nature's plan, lifting its graceful spire into the clouds and hanging out its purple flowers where there is no human eye to see.
Tideland Spruce, Sitka Spruce (Picea Sitchensis, Carr.)— Tree with tapering trunk and enlarged base, ioo to 200 feet high, with broadly pyramidal head of drooping branches. Bark red dish brown, thin, scaly. Wood light, soft, straight grained, satiny, light reddish brown. Buds lustrous, scaly, conical, to inch long. Leaves silvery white above, green beneath, to 1 inch long, flattened, twisted, pointed, horny tipped, all around the twig. Flowers : staminate on side twigs, abundant,
dark red, conical, / to t inches long; pistillate on terminal twigs of upper branches, smaller, oblong. Cones annual, stalked, pendant, 3 to 5 inches long, with elongated scales toothed at tips, fall in winter. Preferred habitat, moist, sandy soil; swamps. Distribution, coast region, Alaska to Cape Mendocino in Cali fornia. Uses: Important lumber for interior woodwork in buildings, boat building, woodenwares, cooperage and fencing. Ornamental tree in Europe, and in the warmer parts of the eastern United States. Most important lumber in Alaska. Used for fuel, construction of buildings, boats, and fencing, wooden utensils and boxing.
The swamps of the tidewater regions of the Northwest, the rocky slopes (if well watered) of the Alaskan ranges of moun tains facing the sea, are clothed with forests of this remarkable tree. Like the bald cypress of the Southeast and the pump kin ash of the valley of the Arkansas, this lover of swamps is buttressed and much enlarged at its base. The indomitable hardihood of the species is shown where it climbs from sea level to an altitude of 3,000 feet, and follows the coast to the northern most point reached by any conifer. The tree dwindles to a starveling shrub when the limits of its range are reached, but in the coast regions of Oregon and Washington it is one of the largest and most beautiful of the Western conifers. The graceful sweep of its wide-spreading lower limbs gives a constant and delightful play of light and shadow, owing to the lustrous sheen on the upper sides of the leaves.
In spite of all efforts to grow it in the East, it seems to suffer from summer heat and drought and winter cold. It grows in Boston if protected, but needs a great deal of coddling there.
Genus PSEUDOTSUGA, Carr.
Pyramidal trees with thick bark and hard, strong, durable wood. Leaves linear, flat, spreading at right angles from the twig; evergreen. Flowers solitary, cone-like, bright coloured. Fruit heavy, drooping annual cones, with thin unarmed scales.