202 Rhodora [NovEMB ER 
Many attempts to correlate slight differences of foliage with the 
peculiarity of the cones showed that both trees had the same trivial 
variations in the needles and that only in the comparative length of the 
scale and its subtending bract were the trees separable. 
The cones secured at Percé were not mature and it was felt that, 
although the two trees were growing side by side and under conditions 
which indicated the same state of development, there still remained 
the slight possibility that, as the season advanced, the cone-scales 
would further elongate and obscure the difference which was 50 con- 
spicuous in mid-summer. The material was consequently pigeon- 
holed until further observations could be made. During the past 
summer, therefore, while spending some weeks with Professor K. M. 
Wiegand in eastern Washington County, Maine, the writer was pleased 
to find the same two variations of the Fir. ‘There, however, the trees, 
though ordinarily distinct, showed more intergradation in the length 
of their bracts than was observed at Percé, indicating that they were 
5 be considered varieties of one species rather than specifically dis- 
tinet. Again the cones when observed were not fully mature, but 
this difficulty has been happily overcome, for through the kindness of 
Miss Mary Deane Dexter the writer has received the top of a fruiting 
tree collected at Winter Harbor, Hancock County, Maine, on Septem- 
Бег 25th. This material sent by Miss Dexter is fully mature and the 
cone-scales are rapidly falling. All but the uppermost scales are 
equalled or exceeded by the divergent awn of the subtending bract so 
that the awns appear wide-spreading and stand out 1 to 5 millimeters 
from the cone. ‘This prominence of the awn is due not so much to the 
fact that it equals or exceeds the subtended scale as to the failure of 
the scale next below to cover it. Material from another station has 
also come to hand. This is a fruiting sprig with disintegrating cones 
sent from Monhegan Island on September 6, by Mrs. Edwin C. Jenney 
to Edward L. Rand, Esquire, as “a Fir which puzzles us because of the 
bristles on the cones." Mrs. Jenney writes further: “The tree had 
evidently been blown over some years back and was growing in a 
horizontal position. In spite of this fact it is a large and healthy-look- 
ing tree. We wondered very much about the cones, never having 
noticed any with the extended awns before." 
In searching the literature of the subject the writer finds that Abies 
balsamea is sometimes described as having the bracts “shorter than the 
scales or rarely longer," but his own experience in the field and these 
