BOTANY. 



53 



tree ; though one would search in vain among cultivated trees for any which should rival 

 in the symmetry of its form, the luxuriance of its foliage, and the size and beauty of its cones, 

 the western silver fir. 



" September 17. — * * On the little prairie which borders one side of the lake are a few trees of 

 the silver fir. With a strong and unimpeded growth, it has here attained a magnitude I have 

 not elsewhere seen. It rises in denser and more symmetrical cones than any other conifer we 

 have met with. The altitude of the largest is more than a hundred feet ; the base of the cone 

 formed, the branches resting on the ground not more than twenty. The branches are so thick 

 as to prevent all access to the trunk without a vigorous use of the hatchet ; and during the 

 pouring rain of the last four day3, we have always been able to find a dry spot beneath the 

 shelter of its impervious foliage." From these descriptions it will be seen that the silver fir 

 forms a dense and slender spire of dark-green foliage, which, on the older trees, is rather too 

 formal to be pleasing, unless grouped with other species, with which its form and the color of 

 the foliage may contrast agreeably. In the Cascade mountains I often saw it so combined with 

 P. grandis and Abies Williamsonii, producing groups which seemed to me to present the extreme 

 limit of arborescent beauty. 



Abies Williamsonii, Neicb. (Plate VII.) Williamson's spruce. 



Fig. 19. Cone, branch, leaves, scales, seeds, and male flower of J}. Williamsonii, natural size. 

 Fig. 19a, b. View of side and base of old cone of Jl. Williamsonii, natural size. 



Description. — A tree of large size and alpine habit ; foliage somewhat fasciculate like that of 

 the larches ; leaves short, acute, compressed, with a lenticular section. Cones pendant, long- 

 ovoid acute, 1^ inch long, purple while young ; when old, cylindrical or somewhat conical with 

 a flattened base ; scales rounded entire, large, in old cones strongly reflexed, except at the base 



