86 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



It has a strong resemblance to the silver fir of Europe, a much 

 loftier and nobler tree. The American tree is known by the 

 name of fir balsam, or balsam fir, or simply, fir. 



The root of the balsam fir, like that of the other pines, pene- 

 trates to a small depth, in young trees, not more than a foot ; 

 and extends horizontally to the distance of five or six, rarely 

 ten feet, covered with a bright red or crimson bark, which 

 separates in thin scales. The trunk is perfectly even and 

 straight, and tapers regularly and rapidly to the top. It is a 

 thrifty grower, and the young shoots are stout and large, and 

 covered with a green bark striate with gray. They are close 

 set with leaves in regular spirals, which continue many years, 

 becoming more and more remote by the growth of the stem, 

 and, when they fall, leaving a large, oval, horizontal scar of 

 great permanence. The bark becomes, from year to year, of a 

 deeper green, and remains smooth, swollen at intervals with the 

 vesicles produced by the crypts containing the balsam, and in 

 the larger stocks, on its native mountains, blotched with mem- 

 branaceous lichens. 



The branches, which in young trees incline upward, and on 

 older ones become nearly horizontal, with a slight upward 

 sweep, are in whorls of about five, often with the regularity of 

 the branches of a chandelier, with occasionally scattered soli- 

 tary limbs between. The leaves are sessile, from one-fourth of 

 an inch to an inch in length, smooth, narrow, pointed, green 

 with faint white lines above, with a silvery blue tinge beneath, 

 produced by many lines of minute, shining, resinous dots. 

 Arranged in spirals, they spread equally on every side of the 

 stem or branch, but when the latter is horizontal, they so bend 

 upwards from the lower side as to seem to form but two rows, 

 or to be crowded on the upper side. 



The buds, round and small, are enveloped in resin; those on 

 the ends of the principal and larger shoots, are surrounded by 

 about five smaller ones. Those on the lateral shoots are single 

 or two or three together ; and solitary buds are scattered irregu- 

 larly at various points. 



The stamens are in oblong heads or aments, one-fourth of an 

 inch long, rather densely crowded on the lower side, near the 



