The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-12-20

There are numbers of evergreen
trees to be met with in the course
Of an afternoons walk in bright
cold Christmas weather, whether
one has access to native timber or
to cultivated trees in a city park or
on suburban lawns.
Many Of us find ourselves en-
barrassed in the presence of our
Christmas trees, as we do when we
essay to introduce a couple of
friends and suddenly discover that
we can not remember their names.
Il know they are evergreens, but I
can't tell them apart" is a common
experience.
Easy TO Distinguish
Yet it is comparatively easy to
learn the trick. There are, after all,
not very many distinct groups of
evergreen trees, and unless one is
anxious to get the last fine details
of specific distinctions, and hold up
his head among professional botan-
lists, he can learn the broad out
lines and be able to distinguish the
common kinds in the course of a
single afternoons ramble.
The only thing one needs do is
look little more closely than usual
at leaves and bark and cones, and
remember fact or two in connec-
ton with each variety.
Pines, though not the favorite
Christmas trees, still are widely used
especially in the south. The thing
to remember about pines is that its
leaves or needles always are found
in pairs or little clusters, and that
its cones are usually comparatively
large, with thick, heavy scales.
If the needles are borne singly or
the cones have thin scales, the tree
isn't a pine. Among the pines
there are two main groups. the
white pines and the yellow White
pines always have its moderately
long, rather soft needles in punches
of FIVE; with one important eXcep-
ticn, the yellow pines never have
their needles so arranged.
Usually Come in Pairs
Yellow pine needles usually come
in twos, though sometimes in threes
or fours. There is only one white
pine that is at all common, but the
yellow pine group is very numerous,
and includes such trees as the
Scotch pine, the jack pine and the
long-leaf pine of the south.
The trees most widely used for
Christmas purposes in this country
are the spruces and frs. All of these
trees bear their leaves singly, in
stead of in punches, as the pines do.
SpruceS and frs can be Identified
further by their moderate sized
thin-scaled cones.
The spruce has hard, stiff, four
sided prickly leaves that stand out
about equally on all sides of the
twigs, and its cones hang down.
There are two or three native
spruces in common cultivation, and
one very fine imported one, the
Norway spruce, notable for its big
cones.
The fir has softer, f1atter leaves,
that are so bent at their bases as to
form two rows or ranks, and its
cones always stand up. Bark and
cones and needles of the spruce fire.
quently are smeared with exudations
of a very sticky resin. which give
the tree its other name of "balsam"
The third tree of the spruce-fir
triumvirate is sort of botanical
orphan. 1t is commonly called
Douglas fir and sometimes Douglas
spruce; but it is neither spruce nor
fir. It's lumber often is sold under
the name of pine, but it is not a
pine.
Its technical name is "PSeudot-
suga", which is an outlandish COM
bination of Greek and a japanese
word, meaning false hemlock," but
it is not at all like a hemlock. The
poor thing simply has not any prop
er name to call its own. And it is
very proper tree, too.
Out in its native northwest, where
trees are trees, its trunks measure
in feet what the common forest
specimens of the east measure in
inches. 1t would be hard to dis
"a