130 SILVA OF NORTE AMERICA. conifebje. 



the lower surface, with bands of from eight to ten rows of stomata occupying the space between the 

 broad midrib and the thickened strongly revolute margins; they are remote, two-ranked from the 

 conspicuous twist near their base, and spread at nearly right angles to the branchlets of lower sterile 

 branches, or are somewhat ascending on upper fertile branches, and are from one inch and a half 

 to two inches and a quarter long and from an eighth to a sixth of an inch wide, with resin ducts 

 close to the epidermis and hypoderm cells in an interrupted band on the upper surface and at the 

 angles and midrib ; on leading shoots they are rounded on the upper surface, and, standing out almost 

 at right angles, are more or less incurved above the middle, from an inch and a half to an inch and 

 three quarters long and about an eighth of an inch wide. The flower-buds resemble the branch-buds 

 in shape and in the texture and color of their scales, which become scarious and silvery white in the 

 inner ranks, forming very conspicuous involucres at the base of the flowers, which open early in May. 

 The buds of the staminate flowers are produced in great numbers near the base of the branchlets on 

 branches from the middle of the tree upward, while those of the pistillate flowers appear near the 

 ends of the branchlets of the upper branches only. The staminate flowers are cylindrical, from three 

 quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter long and a quarter of an inch in diameter, with pale 

 yellow anthers which fade to a dark reddish brown and at maturity are suspended on slender pedicels 

 often half an inch in length. The pistillate flowers are oblong and about an inch and a quarter 

 in length, their scales being oblong, rounded above and nearly as long as their cuneate obcordate 

 yellow-green bracts, with spreading lobes denticulate at the apex, and slender elongated erect slightly 

 spreading or contorted or variously twisted awns. The cones, which are borne on stout peduncles 

 sometimes half an inch in length covered by the scales of the flower-buds, vary from oval to 

 subcylindrical in shape, and are full and rounded at the apex, glabrous and pale purple-brown, from 

 three to four inches long and from an inch and a half to two inches thick, with thin scales strongly 

 incurved above the body of their bracts, obtusely short-pointed at the apex, obscurely and unequally 

 denticulate on the thin margins, f uU and rounded on the sides, which are gradually narrowed to the 

 cordate base, and about one third longer than their oblong obovate obcordate pale yellow-brown bracts 

 which terminate in flat rigid tips from an inch to an inch and three quarters long ; from above the 

 middle of the cone these point toward its apex, and are often closely appressed to its sides, and 

 spreading below its middle frequently are much recurved toward its base. Firmly attached to the cone- 

 scales, the bracts fall with these from the thick conical sharp-pointed axis of the cone. The seeds are 

 dark red-brown, about three eighths of an inch in length and nearly as long as their oblong-obovate 

 pale reddish brown lustrous wings, which are rounded at the apex. 



Ahies venusta in its scattered branches, its large long-pointed buds covered by thin loosely 

 imbricated scales, its broad sharply pointed leaves which are never crowded and are alike on all parts of 

 the tree, and in its glabrous cones with the long exserted awns of the bracts and thick central axes, 

 differs more from the usual forms of the genus than any other Fir-tree. Of the species of Abies now 



r 



known no other occupies such a small territory, for it grows only in a few isolated groves, the largest 

 containing not more than two hundred trees, scattered along the moist bottoms of canons, which in 

 summer often become completely dry, usually at elevations of about three thousand feet on both slopes 

 of the outer western ridge of the Santa Lucia Mountains in Monterey County, California, its associates 

 being Quercus chrysolepis, Quercits densiflora, Quercus Wislizeni^ Arbiihis Menziesii, Umhellularia 

 Californica, Acer macrophyllum, Pinus OouUeri, Pseiidotsicga mucronata, and Ainus rhombifolia} 



1 The most southern -point from which Ahies venusta has been Canon, and in a canon at the head of the Naeimiento, while ten 



reported is in Bear Canon, which faces the east, and is about twenty- miles farther north the presence of two trees has been reported. 



five miles south of Los Burros Mines, near Punta Gorda, where These stations are at elevations of about three thousand feet above 



there is a grove of about two hundred trees. It is scattered along the level of the sea, and I have been unable to hear of trees grow- 



the banks of the San Miguel Canon on the eastern slope of the ing above six thousand feet, as described by Douglas {Compamm 



coast ridge, just south of the trail from King's City to Los Burros Bot. Mag, ii. 152), or of the trees of which William Lobb wrote in 



Mines, and grows in a canon immediately north of the San Miguel 1853 : — 



