Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 11. | November, 1909. No. 131. 
A NEW VARIETY OF ABIES BALSAMEA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
EARLY in August, 1907, while botanizing in eastern Quebec, the 
writer became much interested in two varieties of the Balsam Fir, 
Abies balsamea, which differed so strikingly in their cones as to attract 
his instant attention. On the slopes of Mt. Ste. Anne and Percé Mt., 
near the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, the two trees are both abundant 
and they were there first noticed in looking from a high level across 
the tops of the Firs. In attempting to distinguish in the landscape 
the spire-like tops of the White Spruce (Picea canadensis) the Black 
Spruce (Picea mariana), and the Fir (Abies balsamea), Professor J. F. 
Collins and the writer were puzzled by the unusual appearance of 
many of the trees. ‘Though obviously Firs their summits at that 
season had a peculiar whitish misty appearance which distinguished 
them in the forest from the ordinary Alves balsamea as figured, for 
example, in Sargent's Silva (xii. t. 610). Upon felling one of the trees 
the source of the unusual whitish appearance (quite different from that 
produced by pitch) was revealed, for in all the cones the thin wide- 
spreading awns and sometimes the broad erose and emarginate tips 
of the bracts were still exserted beyond the thick dark scales. In the 
ordinary A. balsamea the pale membranous bracts, during the flowering 
season, are much longer than the firmer dark scales, but the latter 
quickly develop and by July much exceed their subtending bracts and 
those above. ‘This was the condition in the trees upon Percé Mt. which 
we had picked out, without question, as the familiar А. balsamea. 
During the remaining two weeks of our stay at Percé the Firs were 
closely watched and it was found that the two trees were readily dis- 
tinguished near at hand (and, by the aid of a glass, in the distance). 
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