523. The black spruce fir, also named from the colour of its bark, is a native of the northern states of America and Canada, and is very abundant on cold-bottomed lands in the province of Lower Canada, where it forms large forests intermixed with the Hemlock spruce (Abies Canadensis). It often attains a height of GO or 70 feet, and on favourable soil as much as 100 feet, but the diameter of the stems of even the tallest trees seldom exceeds 24 inches.

The colour of the wood is the same as the white spruce, but the black is said to produce much the best timber. It is used in America, where it is valued for its strength, lightness, and elasticity, as knees for ship-building, when neither oak nor larch can be easily obtained.