222 ON THE CORSICAN FIR. 



Kraiii, Tstria, Carinthia, Servia, and Banat. In Croatia and 

 Moravia it is seldom reared in pure forests. 



Throughout parts of Germany, France, Norway, and Scotland 

 its cultivation has been attended with success, although as pure 

 forest it seldom covers large areas. 



The height to which it ascends above the sea-level is not 

 exactly known: some authors quote 2000-3000 feet, others 

 3000-4000, while a third class claims to have found it at a 

 height of 4000-6000 feet above the sea. Towards the southern 

 and south-eastern limits of growth, it naturally ascends furthest 

 up tlie mountain slopes. 



On the average the Corsican fir begins to bear good seed about 

 the 30-35th year. The flowers are developed a little later in 

 the spring than those of the Scotch fir. The female flowers, of 

 a bright red colour, after being fructified by the yellow pollen 

 of the male catkins, form small dark reddish cones during the 

 first summer, which, increasing to the size of 3-4 inches, and 

 with a covering of a glistening wax-like substance, attain matu- 

 rity at the end of the second summer. The seed remains in the 

 cones until the warm breezes of the following spring cause the 

 bracts to open, and scatter it around the parent tree. It may 

 be borne by the wind to a distance of two or three times the 

 height of the tree. In order, then, to procure seed, the cones must 

 be plucked in autumn or winter. The seed is larger than that of 

 the Scotch fir, of a dull white colour, much resembling that of 

 larch-seed. It germinates in two or three wrecks after having 

 been sown (80 to 90 per cent, of the quantity on the average 

 germinating), and during the first yerlr has only single leaves, 

 which in the second year wither and form sheathes for the 

 double leaves that then make their appearance; from the third 

 year onwards whorls are formed. 



Its finely serrated leaves, enclosed in twos, rarely in threes, 

 by the sheaths, of a rich dark green, are longer than those of the 

 Scotch fir, and remain usually four, under favourable circum- 

 stances, five or six years attached to the twigs ; the leaves of the 

 latter are cast off after two or three years, which partly proves 

 that the Corsican fir can bear more shade than our Scotch pine. 



Its growth during the first few years is rapid, but not con- 

 tinuous ; it at once forms a tap or perpendicular root, by means 

 of which it is enabled to offer considerable resistance to storms, 

 that cause such destruction in forests of spruce or of silver fir 

 in exposed situations. On the average, its growth in height is 

 completed about the eightieth to the hundredth year. 



Eeared in pure forests, by means of the leaves cast off in early 

 years, together with the unbroken roof of foliage protecting the 

 moisture of the soil, and not admitting sufficient light to favour 

 the growth of weeds, it has the power not only of preserving the 



