CHAP. CX1II.

CONI'FERjE. ^'bies.

2323

spreading, but slender in proportion to their extent. The bark is light-coloured and smooth, except on very old trees. The leaves are from £ in. to8 lines long, flat, mucronous, and disposed, though irregularly, in two ranks;and downy when young, and serrated, or rough, at their margins; they areof a very vivid light green, with two silvery stripes underneath. The maleflowers are few together, forming a small head on a long footstalk. The conesare only a little longer than the leaves ; pendulous on the extremities of thebranches ; green when young, but becoming brownish when ripe ; the scalesare few, roundish, smooth, and entire on the margins. The seeds are verysmall, and of a light brown, with the wings nearly white. ( Micluc .) The full-grown trees of the hemlock spruce, in England, have a rounder head, and amore pendulous habit of growth, than is the case with any other fir, eitherof America or Europe . Most of the largest specimens, also, such as theoriginal tree at Mill Hill, a large tree at Woburn Farm, one at Claremont,and that at Strathfieldsaye, have forked trunks. When the tree is young,the branches are quite pendulous, and remarkably elegant. The rate ofgrowth, in the climate of London , is rather slow ; but plants,in 10 years, willattain the height of 6 ft. or 8 ft.; and in 20 years, of 15ft. or 20ft. The finestspecimens in the neighbourhood of London are those alluded to above, whichare from 50 ft. to 60 ft. in height; and some trees at Whitton (of one of whicha portrait will be found in our last Volume), which are from 30 ft. to 50 ft.in height, with trunks from 1 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. in diameter.

Geography and History. According to Pursh, the hemlock spruce is foundin the most northern regions of Canada , and on the highest mountains, as farsouth as Carolina. Michaux says that it is a native of the coldest regions ofthe New World, and that it begins to appear about Hudson’s Bay. Near theLake St. John, and in the neighbourhood of Quebec , it fills the forests; and inNova Scotia , New Brunswick, the district of Maine , the state of Vermont ,and the upper parts of New Hampshire , it forms three quarters of the ever-green woods, of which the remainder consists of the black spruce. Farthersouth, it is less common; and, in the middle and southern states, is seenonly on the Alleghanies ; and, even there, it is often confined to the sides oftorrents, and to the more humid and gloomy exposures. In the country eastand north of Massachusetts , which, without embracing Canada , is more thanWO miles long, by about 250 miles broad, these trees are constantly found atthe foot of the hills, and constitute nearly half the unbroken forests whichcover that extensive region. In this district moist soils appear unfavourableto its growth; but it attains a large size on soils proper for growing corn.The hemlock spruce was introduced into England by Peter Collinson, aboutthe year 1736 ; and the original tree is probably that still standing in the groundsat Mill Hill, where it has two trunks, each about 1 ft. in diameter, and 50 ft. high.(See p. 57.) The tree is occasionally found, both in France and Germany , ofconsiderable size, and ripening its seeds. As seeds are annually imported,and even produced by the old trees in this country, the plant is not scarce inthe nurseries.

Properties and Uses. The wood of the hemlock spruce, according to Michaux,!S less valuable than that of any other of the large resinous trees of North America ; but the bark is inestimable, in that country, for the purposes of thetanner. It is esteemed an excellence in wood to split in a straight line, which■t does when the fibre is vertical: but that of the hemlock spruce is so oblique,that it makes the circuit of trunks 1 ft. 3 in. or 1 ft. 8 in. in diameter, in ascend-ln g 5 ft. or 6 ft. Besides this defect, which is general, and which renders itunfit for rural fences, the old trees frequently have their concentric circlesseparated at intervals, or, in the language of the country, are shaky, whichgreatly impairs their strength. This effect is produced by the winds, whichhave a powerful hold upon the large compact summit formed by the head°1 the hemlock spruce, exposed, as it generally is, above the heads of thesurrounding trees. The wood is found to decay rapidly when exposed tome atmosphere, and is therefore improper for the external covering of

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