Spruce

“ In none other does it appear to change, and even then it casts not off the old—it only puts on the new in tenderer and fresher beauty! The new growth of the spruce and fir, the pale yellowish-green tips set in the dark old background, are exquisitely lovely; nor are the light green shoots of the white, yellow, and pitch pine much, less beautiful. ”

“ Up there mighty trees grew closer together, leaving hardly a fragment of sky to discover from below--tall pine and gnarled oak, spreading lindens, beeches, maple and spruce, all growing in a semidarkness where the sunlight seldom pierced. ”

“ On we go, pausing a moment by a cool and shaded spring, following roads little traversed by visitors to the beach, over marshes bridged or crossed by sandy highways, through thickets of spruce, hemlock, alder, eider, willow, crab-apple, wild rose, and spirea, emerging now and then on little plains, grass-covered and sheltered round by dense groves of spruce, where the air is sunny, yet soft and cool. ”

“ One cone-shaped spruce had a base diameter of four feet and came to a point a few inches less than four feet above the earth. Here and there a tough, tall tree manages to stand erect. The high wind either prevents growing or trims off all limbs that do not point to leeward. Some appear as though molded and pressed into shape. A profile of others, with long, streaming-bannered limbs, gives a hopeful view, for they present an unconquerable and conscious appearance, like tattered pennants or torn, triumphant battle-flags of the victorious forest! ”

“ The spruce partridge winds along the brakes and undergrowth just ahead of you, or in the more open space under the dense evergreens flutters up into the lower branches, and seems to think himself secure there. ”

“ Symmetrical silver firs, giant cedars and spruce, grow side by side with sugar pines of vast and irregular outline, whose huge branches, like outstretched arms, hold aloft the splendid cones—such is the ancient wood. ”

“ It is by far the most majestic spruce I ever beheld in any forest, and one of the largest and longest lived of the giants that flourish throughout the main pine belt, often attaining a height of nearly 200 feet, and a diameter of six or seven. Where the growth is not too close, the strong, spreading branches come more than halfway down the trunk, and these are hung with innumerable slender, swaying sprays, that are handsomely feathered with the short leaves which radiate at right angles all around them. ”

“ It was true: they could never leave the forest for long. They were its children, bred in the bone. Their strong thews would waste in a gentler land. It was their heritage. They must not go where they could not behold the dark line of the forest against the sky.
The fire burned down. The moon wheeled through the sky. The tall spruce saw the dawn afar and beckoned. ”

“ When once you know the spruces by the looks or the feel, you will begin to know the white from the red and black spruce by the colour. Everything about the white spruce is paler than the others. The foliage is light, almost pea-green, and the bark is not ruddy but grayish-brown. There are thousands of acres of spruce woods in our northern Central and New England states. Boys and girls on camping trips can sometimes collect spruce gum enough to [82] pay expenses and have fun doing it. ”

“ Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. ”

“ Originally red spruce was one of our principal lumber trees, but when it is removed there is but little natural reproduction. Often planted for shade. Wood used for construction, musical instruments, furniture, aeroplanes and paper pulp. ”

“ It may be observed in traveling through the stands of mixed spruce and fir among the high ranges of the southern Appalachian mountains that the proportion of spruce is much higher in old stands than in young. ”

“ We cut young trees to make our poles and thwarts,
Barked the white spruce to weatherfend the roof,
Then struck a light and kindled the camp-fire.
⁠The wood was sovran with centennial trees,—
Oak, cedar, maple, poplar, beech and fir,
Linden and spruce. In strict society
Three conifers, white, pitch and Norway pine,
Five-leaved, three-leaved and two-leaved, grew thereby. ”

“ In deeper soils, and in situations protected from the winds, the stem is erect, slender, and tapering, surmounted by a stately head with long, flexible branches, scarcely less regular in outline than the spruce. ”

“ WHITE SPRUCE (Picea canadensis) ranges from Labr. to Alaska, s. to N.E., centr. parts of Mich. and Wis., the Black Hills. w. slopes of the Rockies in Can. and Mont. Not a large or valuable tree except for paper pulp, it is the most ornamental eastern spruce. ”

“ I wish I had space to write more of the surpassing beauty of this favorite spruce. Every tree-lover is sure to regard it with special admiration; apathetic mountaineers, even, seeking only game or gold, stop to gaze on first meeting it, and mutter to themselves: "That's a mighty pretty tree," some of them adding, "d——d pretty!" In autumn, when its cones are ripe, the little striped tamias, and the Douglas squirrel, and the Clark crow make a happy stir in its groves. The deer love to lie down beneath its spreading branches; ”

“ The spruce and cedar on its shores, hung with gray lichens, looked at a distance like the ghosts of trees. Ducks were sailing here and there on its surface, and a solitary loon, like a more living wave,—a vital spot on the lake's surface,—laughed and frolicked, and showed its straight leg, for our amusement. ”

“ European spruce is often locally known as white deal.
Spruce trees have single, sharp-pointed, short leaves, pointing everywhere, and keeled above and below so as to appear four-sided; the cones hang down. Spruce may be distinguished from the pines, firs, and hemlocks by the fact that pine leaves are longer and in clusters, that hemlock leaves are flat, blunt, and two-ranked, and that fir cones point upward. The genus picea has twelve species, five of which are North American. The resins of the black and red spruce are used as confections. [p149] ”

“ They are the common or spruce fir, a native of Norway, and other northern countries, and one of the loftiest of the tribe. But observe those trees that grow singly in the grounds opposite to us with widespread branches spreading downward, and trailing on the ground, thence gradually lessening till the top of the tree ends almost in a point. ”

“ The white spruce forest along the banks is most inspiring, magnificent here. Down the terraced slopes and right to the water's edge on the alluvial soil it stands in ranks. ”

“ Monotony which becomes oppressive to one who lingers long in its sombre shade is its most conspicuous characteristic. In the main it is composed of but eight species of trees, namely, white and black spruce, larch or tamarack, canoe-birch, balsam-poplar, aspen, balsam-fir, and the gray pine. Of these the spruces are the most abundant and most characteristic as well as the most northern trees of the continent. They 237 frequently reach sufficient size to make them available for building log houses and for lumber. ”

“ In these forests are found pine, spruce, hemlock, fir, rock and white maple, oak, white, yellow and gray birch, beech, cedar, black larch, cherry, bass-wood, white and brown ash, poplar, elm and chestnut. Fruit-trees are abundant. Apples, pears and plums are extensively grown. ”

“ At sunset hour the forest was still, lonely, sweet with tang of fir and spruce, blazing in gold and red and green; and the man who glided on under the great trees seemed to blend with the colors and, disappearing, to have become a part of the wild woodland. ”

“ But I will see what I can do towards hunting up the material, to-morrow. A coat of these spruce boughs, spread over this framework above, and set up here against the sides, will answer for to-night. And this rigging up, gathering hemlock boughs for our beds, building a good fire here in front, and [Pg 178] cooking the supper, are all we had better think of attempting this evening ”

“ Scarcely a tree is spared, even the soil is scraped away, while the thousands of uprooted pines and spruces are piled upon one another heads downward, and tucked snugly in along the sides of the clearing in two windrows, like lateral moraines. ”

“ BARK.—Twigs smooth, gray-green, becoming orange-brown, finally dark gray-brown; thin, light gray-brown on the trunk, separating into thin, plate-like scales.
WOOD.—Light, soft, weak, straight-grained, light yellow, with sapwood of the same color.
DISTRIBUTION.—Common in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula and throughout the Upper Peninsula.
HABITAT.—Low, damp woods; banks of streams; borders of lakes; high rocky or sandy slopes; loves the cold winters.
NOTES.—A vigorous and beautiful tree in regions sufficiently cold.
[Pg 22]
Black Spruce
1. ”

“ The oak is a majestic tree, the chesnut one of the most umbrageous of forest trees, the elm rises like a pyramid of verdure, the ash has its drooping branches, the maple is celebrated for its light and quivering foliage, but the beech is the poets’ tree, the lovers’ tree. Have you not heard that young men often haunt the forest, and disfigure the even and silvery bark of beech-trees, by making them the depositors of the names of their beloved ones? ”

“ Happy the man with the freedom and the love to climb one of these superb trees in full flower and fruit. How admirable the forest-work of Nature is then seen to be, as one makes his way up through the midst of the broad, fronded branches, all arranged in exquisite order around the trunk, like the whorled leaves of lilies, and each branch and branchlet about as strictly pinnate as the most symmetrical fern-frond. The staminate cones are seen growing straight downward from the under side of the young branches in lavish profusion, making fine purple clusters amid the grayish-green foliage. ”

“ Over the rocks, amid the mosses, hang the long pendent ferns, in richer, darker green. And with the grand old pine and fir trees lifting their heads to the heavens, and the thick tanglewood of shrub and underbrush, there is grandeur, grace, and beauty in bewildering, changeful, and ravishing confusion. ”

“ The oaks are more tenacious of their leaves than any other deciduous tree, though they are fairly early in showing autumn tints. Long after the reds of other trees of the wood are buried in the brown drifts that cover the roots from the too fierce frosts of winter the rich deep crimsons and red-browns of the oak remain. ”

“ First the elastic tops of the arches begin to appear, then one branch after another, each springing loose with a gentle rustling sound, and at length the whole tree, with the assistance of the winds, gradually unbends and rises and settles back into its place in the warm air, as dry and feathery and fresh as young ferns just out of the coil. ”

“ The shrub, with its hardy roots interlaced through the soil, and binding the very stones, grows rich in its bright greenery. Eventually the tree springs from the soil, and where once the tempest beat on the bare cold rock, is now the lordly and branching monarch of the forest, with its thousand leaves, affording shelter from the storm for bird and beast. ”

“ I have oftentimes feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when they were towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow—one mass of bloom; in summer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thick among the shimmering needles, and the big purple burs are ripening in the mellow light; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that these colossal pines are most impressively beautiful. Then they bow like willows, their leaves streaming forward all in one direction, and, when the sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as if every leaf were burnished silver. ”

“ The goodly trees rise up from out soft earth, and their straight stems, with the curiously carved bark, stand tall and erect, many feet on high, ere the branches begin gracefully to strike out on the several sides. Then the boughs grow more forked and multiply again, and still there are no leaves yet to be seen, only when you look up from below you see that there is a great shade spread above you, and that all those thickly matted branches are clothed and adorned with the dark and sweet-scented foliage. ”

“ The old tree with its bleached and skeleton arms has a fearful name, and stout of heart must the man be who would pass within sight of it when the sun is set behind the hill, and the trees cast their lengthened shadows on the grass. It is called the ‘haunted oak,’ the ‘spirit’s blasted tree,’ or the ‘hobgoblin’s hollow tree,’ and dismal is the tale to which the name refers. ”

“ The question about shrubs growing under trees is so frequently asked that the names of those most successful are given, but generally the beauty of the tree is lost when smothered up with evergreens and other shrubs beneath its spreading branches. A tree is a picture in itself, and it is pleasant to see the grass creep to the branch edge and then cease, leaving a brown earth patch under the canopy of foliage.
Shepherdi Holly, Tree Ivies, and Berberis stenophylla, it may be mentioned, are a success under trees. ”

“ Some, under the influence of better soil or more light, have done better than others; but they are all sound and stately trees, and together represent the best product of the forest. Long ago other trees that grew in their midst, but were less promising, were removed for the sake of these. Under their continuous roof of foliage [Pg 160] there is a cool, deep shade. The ground is scattered with fern, or covered with deep beds of leaves, or with the glossy needles of the conifers. ”

“ Habit.—A shrub, or small tree, rarely exceeding 25 feet in height; trunk 8-10 inches in diameter; branches straggling, thickish, mostly crooked when old; branchlets forked, straight, often killed at the tips several inches by the frost; head very open, irregular, characterized by its velvety shoots, ample, elegant foliage, turning in early autumn to rich yellows and reds, and by its beautiful, soft-looking crimson cones. ”