The Black Spruce is a taller and larger tree in its native forest than
the white spruce; but the latter, when planted in pleasure-grounds,
makes a more beautiful standard than the other, which is apt to grow
scraggy and defective, like the balsam fir. There is some difficulty in
distinguishing the two American species, until they have been repeatedly
examined and compared, though they do not differ from each other so
obviously as they both differ from the Norway spruce. In the white
spruce the trunk tapers more rapidly, the bark of the recent branches is
lighter colored, the cones are smaller and more elongated, the leaves
have more of a glaucous hue, they are also longer and less numerous, and
do not form so perfect a cylinder by closely surrounding the branch, as
in the Black Spruce.
Notwithstanding their similarity, it is the Black Spruce alone that
produces the essential oil for the manufacture of beer. This species is
also much more valuable for its timber. Emerson remarks that the leaves
and scales of all the pine family, in which are included the spruce and
the fir, are so disposed as to form spirals in two directions.