Distribution. High mountain slopes, often forming great forests from the mountains of Alberta, British Columbia and Alaska, southward over the interior mountain systems of the continent to southern New Mexico (the Sacramento Mountains) and northern Arizona, from elevations of 5000° at the north up to 11,500° and occasionally to 12,000° at the south, and westward through Montana and Idaho to the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon; attaining its greatest size and beauty north of the northern boundary of the United States. Occasionally planted as an ornamental tree in the New England states and northern Europe, where it grows vigorously and promises to attain a large size; usually injured in western Europe by spring frosts. 5. Picea pungens Englm. Blue Spruce. Colorado Spruce. _Picea Parryana_ Sarg. [Illustration: Fig. 43] Leaves strongly incurved, especially those on the upper side of the branches, stout, rigid, acuminate and tipped with long callous sharp points, 1′—1⅛′ long on sterile branches, often not more than half as long on the fertile branches of old trees, marked on each side by 4—7 rows of stomata, dull bluish green on some individuals and light or dark steel-blue or silvery white on others, the blue colors gradually changing to dull blue-green at the end of three or four years. Flowers: male yellow tinged with red; female with broad oblong or slightly obovate pale green scales truncate or slightly emarginate at the denticulate apex, and acute bracts. Fruit produced on the upper third of the tree, sessile or short-stalked, oblong-cylindric, slightly narrowed at the ends, usually about 3′ long, green more or less tinged with red when fully grown at midsummer, becoming pale chestnut-brown and lustrous, with flat tough rhombic scales flexuose on the margins, and acute, rounded or truncate at the elongated erose apex; seeds ⅛′ long or about half the length of their wings, gradually widening to above the middle and full and rounded at apex.