96 8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



J 



middle of the tree, the upper scales of their involucres falling early with the flowers, the lower often 

 persistent for a year or two on the branches \ the pistillate usually on the upper side only of the topmost 

 branches, generally from one to four flowers appearing on a branch, or in some species scattered also 

 over the upper half of the tree, their involucres more or less persistent under the cone. Staminate 

 flowers pendulous, pedicellate, their slender pedicels often becoming much elongated before falling, oval 

 or oblong-cylindrical 3 anthers short-stalked, subglobose, opening transversely, surmounted by the short 

 knob-like projections of their connectives, yellow or scarlet ; pollen-grains large, bilobed, furnished 

 with two air -sacs. Pistillate flowers short-stalked, erect, globose, ovoid, or oblong, their scales 

 spirally imbricated in many series, obovate, rounded above, cuneate below, much shorter than their 

 acute or dilated and mucronate bracts; ovules two under each scale, collateral, inverted. Fruit an 

 erect ovoid or oblong cylindrical strobile, maturing in one season, its scales thin, incurved at the broad 

 rounded or rarely bluntly pointed apex, wedge-shaped, and gradually narrowed at the base into short 

 or long stipes, closely imbricated, decreasing in size and sterile toward both ends of the cone, pale 

 green, gray-brown, canary-yellow, or dark purple, puberulous or rarely glabrous on the exposed portions, 

 longer or shorter than their membranaceous bracts, falling at maturity with their bracts and seeds from 

 the stout tapering axis of the cone long persistent on the branch.^ Seeds two under each scale, 

 reversed, attached at the base, ovoid or oblong, acute at the base, compressed, furnished with large 

 conspicuous resin vesicles, covered on the upper side and infolded below on the lower side by the base 

 of their parchment-Hke oblong-obtuse wings formed from the inner coat of the scale, and abruptly 

 enlarged at the somewhat obliquely rounded apex ; testa thin, of two coats, the inner membranaceous, 

 the outer thicker, coriaceous. Embryo axile in copious fleshy albumen ; cotyledons from four to ten, 

 stomatiferous on the upper surface.® 



Abies is distributed in the New World from Labrador and the valley of the Athabasca River to 

 the mountains of North Carolina, and from the mountains of Alaska to the highlands of Guatemala, 

 and in the Old World from Siberia and the mountains of central Europe to southern Japan, the 

 Himalayas, Asia Minor, and the mountains of northern Africa. Twenty-three species can now be 

 distinguished ; ^ in America two species inhabit the eastern part of the continent ; seven occur on the 

 mountains of the west, and one is found only in Mexico and Guatemala."^ Pour species are scattered 

 through the mountain forests of the island of Hondo, and another forms large forests on the islands of 

 Yezo and Saghalin.^ Abies Sihiriea^ is widely distributed through northern continental Asia, and on 

 the Himalayas Abies Webbiana ^^ grows in great subalpine forests. Abies Nor dmanniana^^ and Abies 

 Cilicica ^^ are important elements in the forest-covering of the Caucasus and the Cilician Taurus ; Abies 

 Oephalonica^^ is spread over the mountains of Cephalonia and Greece, and is replaced on the mountains 

 of central and southern Europe by Abies Picea}^ Abies Pinsapo^^ grows only on the mountain ranges 

 of southern Spain, and Abies Baborensis'^^ is confined to the mountain forests of northern Africa. 

 Traces of Abies in the tertiary rocks of Grinnell Land show that it once inhabited the Arctic Circle, 

 from which it was driven southward by the refrigeration of the northern hemisphere to the mountains 

 of the south, which are now its principal home ^'^ and on which in Europe there were probably more 

 species than at the present time.^^ 



Abies produces soft perishable wood, sometimes manufactured into cheap lumber, and balsamic 

 exudations employed in medicine and the arts. 



Abies in North America does not sufEer seriously from the attacks of insects ^^ or fungal diseases.^ 

 All the species are beautiful garden plants in youth, although when removed from their native 

 mountain forests they usually become thin and ragged in old age, and several of the Fir-trees are 

 common inhabitants of the parks of temperate countries, especially those native to western North 

 America, the Japanese Abies Momi^^ Abies Veitchi^'^ Abies homolepis^^ and the species of Europe 

 and Asia Minor. 



Abies, the classical name probably of the Fir-tree, was used by Tournefort ^* as the name of the 



