N. ORD. CONIFER. 164 
8. Ord.—ABIETINEA. 
GENUS.—ABIES, TOURN. 
SEX. SYST._MONCGECIA MONADAELPHIA. 
ABIES CANADENSIS. 
HEMLOCK. 
SYN.—ABIES CANADENSIS, MICHX.; PINUS CANADENSIS, WILLD., 
LINN.; PINUS-ABIES CANADENSIS, MARSH. 
COM. NAMES.—HEMLOCK, HEMLOCK-SPRUCE, HEMLOCK-FIR; (GER.) 
CANADISCHE EDELTANNE. 
A TINCTURE OF THE FRESH BARK AND YOUNG BUDS OF ABIES CANADENSIS, 
MICHX. 
Description.—This evergreen forest tree attains a height of from 60 to 80 
feet, and a width of 40 to 60. 7/7runk 2 to 3 or more feet in diameter, excurrent 
but tending to deliquescence ; wood coarse and poor, it weighs 23 Ibs. per cubic 
foot and has a sp. gr. of .384; dvanches horizontal,* the uppermost pendulous at 
their apices. eaves stiff, short, flat, linear, obtuse, irregularly crowded, but mostly 
spreading in two directions, thus appearing 2-ranked; they are dark, rich, glossy 
green above, and whitish by a single silvery line each side of the midrib under- 
neath, making a branch upturned by the wind appear silvery-white ; Aetzoles short 
and slender. Sterile aments small, glébose, composed of a few stamens, and sur- 
rounded at the base of the column by a few erect, brownish scales; filaments 
short; azthers capitate, with an apiculate crest; ced/s 2, confluent; dehiscence 
transverse; pollen simple, saucer-shaped. Cones ovoid, persistent, small, % to 
1 inch long, pendent on the ends of the declined branchlets of the preceding 
year; scales few, thin, markedly imbricate, obtuse, ligneous, with a coriaceous 
edge; longer than the bracts and persistent on the axis; dracts broadly ovate, 
truncate. Seeds with a long, thin, membranaceous wig, greatly resembling in 
outline that of the fly. Read Abies and Conifere, under the preceding drug. 
History and Habitat.—This common native tree is, when young, the most 
raceful of our evergreens. It is hardy, yet delicate in its outline, its feathery- 
tipped branches reminding one of the plumose ends of a bouquet of pampas 
grasses. When old it grows more rugged and sombre, but increases in the pic- 
turesque. Its foliage is soft to the hand, beautiful in sunshine and shadow, and 
rests the snow-blinded eye with that peace that verdure resplendent in light and 
an excellent artist and etcher, kindly sketched, at my instigation, the trees in Plates 164 and 165. In 
* My father, 
to somewhat supersede mine of the horizontality, of the 
this figure he unfortunately allowed his ideas of the picturesque, 
branches. 
