Manual of the Trees of North America (Exclusive of Mexico) 2nd ed.Sargent, Charles Sprague
Science
Manual of the Trees of North America (Exclusive of Mexico) 2nd ed.
Sargent, Charles Sprague
Trees -- North America
Leaves abruptly narrowed and obtuse at apex, straight or slightly
incurved, rounded and obscurely ridged and dark green and lustrous on
the lower surface, flattened and conspicuously marked on the upper
surface by 4 or 5 rows of stomata on each side of the prominent midrib,
¾′—1⅛′ long, 1/16′—1/10′ wide. Flowers: male dark purple; female
oblong-cylindric, with obovate scales rounded above and reflexed on the
entire margins, and oblong bracts laciniately divided at their rounded
or acute apex. Fruit ellipsoidal, gradually narrowed from the middle to
the ends, acute at apex, rather oblique at base, suspended on straight
slender stalks, deep rich purple or green more or less tinged with
purple when fully grown, becoming light orange-brown, 2′—4′ long, with
thin broadly ovate flat scales longer than broad, rounded at apex,
opening late in the autumn after the escape of the seeds, often becoming
strongly reflexed and very flexible; usually remaining on the branches
until their second winter; seeds acute at base, full and rounded on the
sides, ⅛′ long, dark brown, and about one quarter the length of their
wings broadest toward the full and rounded apex.
A tree, usually 80°—100° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter above the
swelling of its enlarged and gradually tapering base, and furnished to
the ground with crowded branches, those at the top of the tree short and
slightly ascending, with comparatively short pendulous lateral branches,
those lower on the tree horizontal or pendulous and clothed with slender
flexible whip-like laterals often 7°—8° long and not more than ¼′ thick
and furnished with numerous long thin lateral branchlets, their ultimate
divisions slender, coated with fine pubescence persistent until their
third season, bright red-brown during their first winter, gradually
growing dark gray-brown. Winter-buds conic, light chestnut-brown, ¼′
long and ⅛′ thick. Bark ½′—¾′ thick, broken into long thin closely
appressed scales dull red-brown on the surface. Wood heavy, soft,
close-grained, light brown or nearly white, with thick hardly
distinguishable sapwood.
Distribution. Dry mountain ridges and peaks near the timber-line on both
slopes of the Siskiyou Mountains on the boundary between California and
Oregon, forming small groves at elevations of about 7000° above the sea;
on a high peak west of Marble Mountain in Siskiyou County, California;
on the coast ranges of southwestern Oregon at elevations of 4000°—5000°.
7. Picea sitchensis Carr. Tideland Spruce. Sitka Spruce.
[Illustration: Fig. 45]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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