Leaves more or less incurved above the middle, acute or rounded and furnished at the apex with short callous points, dark green often slightly tinged with yellow, very lustrous, marked on the upper surface by 4 rows and on the lower less conspicuously by 2 rows of stomata on each side of the prominent midrib, ½′—⅝′ long, nearly 1/16′ wide. Flowers: male oval, almost sessile, bright red; female oblong-cylindric, with thin rounded scales reflexed and slightly erose on their margins, and obovate bracts rounded and laciniate above. Fruit on very short straight or incurved stalks, ovoid-oblong, gradually narrowed from near the middle to the acute apex, 1¼′—2′ long, with rigid puberulous scales entire or slightly toothed at the apex; bright green or green somewhat tinged with purple when fully grown, becoming light reddish brown and lustrous at maturity, beginning to fall as soon as the scales open in the autumn or early winter, and generally disappearing from the branches the following summer; seeds dark brown, about ⅛′ long, with short broad wings full and rounded above the middle.
A tree, usually 70°—80° and occasionally 100° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, branches long-persistent on the stem and clothing it to the ground, forming a narrow rather conical head, or soon disappearing below from trees crowded in the forest, stout pubescent light green branchlets, becoming bright reddish brown or orange-brown during their first winter, glabrous the following year, and covered in their third or fourth year with scaly bark. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ¼′—⅓′ long, with light reddish brown scales. Bark ¼′—½′ thick, and broken into thin closely appressed irregularly shaped red-brown scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not strong, pale slightly tinged with red, with paler sapwood usually about 2′ thick; largely manufactured into lumber in the northeastern states, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and used for the flooring and construction of houses, for the sounding-boards of musical instruments, and in the manufacture of paper-pulp.
Distribution. Well-drained uplands and mountain slopes, often forming a large part of extensive forests, from Prince Edward Island and the valley of the St. Lawrence southward to the coast of Massachusetts, along the interior hilly part of New England, New York, and northern Pennsylvania and on the slopes of the Alleghany Mountains at elevations above 2500 feet from West Virginia to North Carolina and Tennessee.
Occasionally planted in the eastern states and in Europe as an ornamental tree, but growing in cultivation more slowly than any other Spruce-tree.
3. [Picea glauca] Voss. White Spruce.
Picea canadensis B. S. P.
Leaves crowded on the upper side of the branches by the twisting of those on the lower side, incurved, acute or acuminate with rigid callous tips, pale blue and hoary when they first appear, becoming dark blue-green or pale blue, marked on each of the 4 sides by 3 or 4 rows of stomata, ⅓′—¾′ long. Flowers: male pale red, soon appearing yellow from the thick covering of pollen; female oblong-cylindric, with round nearly entire pale red or yellow-green scales, broader than long, and nearly orbicular denticulate bracts. Fruit nearly sessile or borne on short thin straight stems, oblong-cylindric, slender, slightly narrowed to the ends, rather obtuse at apex, usually about 2′ long, pale green sometimes tinged with red when fully grown, becoming at maturity pale brown and lustrous, with nearly orbicular scales, rounded, truncate, and slightly emarginate, or rarely narrowed at apex, and very thin, flexible and elastic at maturity, usually deciduous in the autumn or during the following winter; seeds about ⅛′ long, pale brown, with narrow wings gradually widened from the base to above the middle and very oblique at the apex.
A tree, with disagreeable smelling foliage, rarely more than 60°—70° tall, with a trunk not more than 2° in diameter, long comparatively thick branches densely clothed with stout rigid laterals sweeping out in graceful upward curves, and forming a broad-based rather open pyramid often obtuse at the apex, stout glabrous branchlets orange-brown during their first autumn and winter, gradually growing darker grayish brown. Winter-buds broadly ovoid, obtuse, covered by light chestnut-brown scales with thin often reflexed ciliate margins. Bark ¼′—½′ thick, separating irregularly into thin plate-like light gray scales more or less tinged with brown. Wood light, soft, not strong, straight-grained light yellow, with hardly distinguishable sapwood; manufactured into lumber in the eastern provinces of Canada and in Alaska, and used in construction, for the interior finish of buildings, and for paper-pulp.