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Trees or shrubs, resinous; leaves simple, mostly evergreen, relatively small, entire, needle-shaped, awl-shaped, linear, or scale-like; stipules none; flowers catkin-like; calyx none; corolla none; ovary represented by a scale (ovuliferous scale) bearing the naked ovules on its surface.
Buds scaly; leaves evergreen and persistent for several years (except in Larix ), scattered along the twigs, spirally arranged or tufted, linear, needle-shaped, or scale-like; sterile and fertile flowers separate upon the same plant; stamens (subtended by scales) spirally arranged upon a central axis, each bearing two pollen-sacs surmounted by a broad-toothed connective; fertile flowers composed of spirally arranged bracts or cover-scales, each bract subtending an ovuliferous scale; cover-scale and ovuliferous scale attached at their bases; cover-scale usually remaining small, ovuliferous scale enlarging, especially after fertilization, gradually becoming woody or leathery and bearing two ovules at its base; cones maturing (except in Pinus ) the first year; ovuliferous scales in fruit usually known as cone-scales; seeds winged; roots mostly spreading horizontally at a short distance below the surface.
Leaf-buds not scaly; leaves evergreen and persistent for several years, opposite, verticillate, or sometimes scattered, scale-like, often needle-shaped in seedlings and sometimes upon the branches of older plants; flowers minute; stamens and pistils in separate blossoms upon the same plant or upon different plants; stamens usually bearing 3-5 pollen-sacs on the underside; scales of fertile aments few, opposite or ternate; fruit small cones, or berries formed by coalescence of the fleshy cone-scales; otherwise as in Abietaceæ .
Habitat and Range. —Low lands, shaded hillsides, borders of ponds; in New England preferring cold swamps; sometimes far up mountain slopes.
Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, west to the Rocky mountains; from the Rockies through British Columbia, northward along the Yukon and Mackenzie systems, to the limit of tree growth beyond the Arctic circle.
Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont,—abundant, filling swamps acres in extent, alone or associated with other trees, mostly black spruce; growing depressed and scattered on Katahdin at an altitude of 4000 feet; Massachusetts,—rather common, at least northward; Rhode Island,—not reported; Connecticut,—occasional in the northern half of the state; reported as far south as Danbury (Fairfield county).
South along the mountains to New Jersey and Pennsylvania; west to Minnesota.
Habit. —The only New England conifer that drops its leaves in the fall; a tree 30-70 feet high, reduced at great elevations to a height of 1-2 feet, or to a shrub; trunk 1-3 feet in diameter, straight, slender; branches very irregular or in indistinct whorls, for the most part nearly horizontal; often ending in long spire-like shoots; branchlets numerous, head conical, symmetrical while the tree is young, especially when growing in open swamps; when old extremely variable, occasionally with contorted or drooping limbs; foliage pale green, turning to a dull yellow in autumn.
Bark. —Bark of trunk reddish or grayish brown, separating at the surface into small roundish scales in old trees, in young trees smooth; season's shoots gray or light brown in autumn.
Winter Buds and Leaves. —Buds small, globular, reddish.
Leaves simple, scattered along the season's shoots, clustered on the short, thick dwarf branches, about an inch long, pale green, needle-shaped; apex obtuse; sessile.
Inflorescence. —March to April. Flowers lateral, solitary, erect; the sterile from leafless, the fertile from leafy dwarf branches; sterile roundish, sessile; anthers yellow: fertile oblong, short-stalked; bracts crimson or red.
Fruit. —Cones upon dwarf branches, erect or inclining upwards, ovoid to cylindrical, ½-¾ of an inch long, purplish or reddish brown while growing, light brown at maturity, persistent for at least a year; scales thin, obtuse to truncate; edge entire, minutely toothed or erose; seeds small, winged.
Horticultural Value. —Hardy in New England; grows in any good soil, preferring moist locations; the formal outline of the young trees becomes broken, irregular, and picturesque with age, making the mature tree much more attractive than the European species common to cultivation. Rarely for sale in nurseries, but obtainable from collectors. To be successfully transplanted, it must be handled when dormant. Propagated from seed.
Note. —The European species, with which the mature plant is often confused, has somewhat longer leaves and larger cones; a form common in cultivation has long, pendulous branches.
| 1. Branch with sterile and fertile flowers. |
| 2. Sterile flowers. |
| 3. Different views of stamens. |
| 4. Ovuliferous scale with ovules. |
| 5. Fruiting branch. |
| 6. Open cone. |
| 7. Cone-scale with seeds. |
| 8. Leaf. |
| 9. Cross-section of leaf. |