CONIFERS. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA 



133 



ABIES NOBILIS. 



Red Fir. Larch. 



Bracts of the cone-scales spatulate, full, rounded, and fimbriate above, long- 

 pointed, recurved, nearly covering their scales. Leaves light blue-green, distinctly 

 grooved above, rounded and emarginate at the apex on lower branches, crowded, 

 incurved, nearly equally 4-sided and acute on fertile branches. 



Abies nobilis, Lindley, Penny Cycl, i. 30 (1833). — Forbes, 

 Pinetum Wohurn. 115, t. 40. — Link, Linncea, xv. 532, — 

 Lawson & Son, Agric. Man, 374. 

 419.- 



— Spach, Hist. Veg. xi. 

 Nuttall, Sylva, iii. 136, t. 117. - 



— Lindley & Gor- 

 don, Jour. Hort, Soc. Lond. v. 209. — Carrifere, TraitS 

 Conif. 198. — Henkel & Hochstetter, Syn. Nadelh. 168. 

 S^n^clauze, Conif. 10. — K. Koch, Dendr. ii. pt. ii. 209. 

 Engelmann, Trans. St. Louis Acad. iii. 601 (in part) ; 

 Gard. Chron. n. ser. xii. 684 (in part) ; Brewer & Wat- 

 son Bot. CaL ii. 119 (in part) ; Bot. Gazette, vii. 4. 

 Veitch, Man. Conif. 101, — Lauche, Deutsche Dendr. ed. 



the Pacific Slope). — Beissner, Handh. Nadelh. 484, 

 f. 136, 137. — Hansen, Jour. B>. Hort. Soc. xiv. 470 

 (Pinetum Danicum), — Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 17. 

 Pinus nobilis, D. Don, Lambert Pinus, iii. t. (1837). 

 Hooker, PL Bor.-Am. ii. 162. — Antoine, Conif. 77, t. 29, 

 f. 2. — Hooker & Arnott, Bot. Toy. Beechey, 394. 

 Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 90, — Lawson & Son, List No. 

 10, Ahietinece, 12. — Dietrich, Syn. v. 393. — Courtin, 

 Fam. Conif 57. — Parlatore, De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. 

 ii. 419. — W. R. M'Nab, Proc. B. Irish Acad. ser. 2, ii. 



699, t. 49, f. 29, 29 a, b. 



2, 83. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. Picea nobilis, Loudon, Arb. Brit. iv. 2342, f. 2249, 2250 



ix, 214. — Masters, Gard. Chron. n. ser. xxiv. 652, f . 146 ; 

 Jour. Linn. Soc. xxii. 188 (excl. hab. Mt. Shasta and 

 var. rnagnifica) ; Jour. B. Hort. Soc. xiv. 193. — 

 Gard. Chron. n. ser. xxv. 395. — Mayr, Wald. Nordam. 



Syme, 



(1838). — Knight, Syn. Conif. 39. — Lindley & Gordon, 

 Jour. Hort. Soc. Lond. v. 209. — Gordon, Pinetum, 149 ; 

 Suppl. 48. — Newberry, Pacific B. B, Bep. vi. pt. iii. 49, 

 90, £. 17. — Lawson, Pinetum Brit. ii. 181, t. 28, 29, £. 

 1-18. — (Nelson) Senilis, Pinacece, 59. 



350. — Lemmon, Bep. California State Board Forestry, 



iii. 141 {Co7ie-Bearers of California); West-American Picea (Pseudotsuga) nobilis, Bertrand, Ann. Sci. Nat. 



Cone-Bearers, 61 ; Bull. Sierra Club, ii. 164 {Conifers of s^r. 5, xx. ^Q (1874). 



w 



A tree, in old age * with a comparatively broad and somewhat rounded head, and usually from one 

 hundred and fifty to two hundred and occasionally two hundred and fifty feet in height, with a massive 

 trunk from six to eight feet in diameter, short rigid Kmhs disposed in regular remote whorls, and short 

 stout remote lateral branches standing out at right angles, the ultimate divisions generally pointing 

 forward and the whole forming great flat-topped masses of foliage. Until the tree is from eighty to 

 one hundred feet in height the tapering stem is covered with thin smooth pale bark and clothed to the 

 ground with branches which form a regular open pyramid gradually narrowed to the slender apex, 

 but from the lower portion of the trunks of older trees the branches gradually fall, often leaving 

 them naked for one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet when fully grown, the bark on the old 

 trunks being from one to two inches in thickness, bright red-brown, and deeply divided into broad 

 flat ridges irregularly broken by cross fissures and covered with thick closely appressed scales. The 

 winter branch-buds are ovoid-oblong, about an eighth of an inch in length, and covered by ovate 

 acute red-brown scales usually thickly coated with resin. The branchlets are comparatively slender, 

 puberulous for four or five years, bright reddish brown during their first season, and then gradually 



1 The log specimen in the Jesup Collection of North American 

 Woods in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, 

 cut on the Cascade Mountains near Portland, Oregon, is twenty and 

 one half inches in diameter inside the bark and two hundred and 

 ninety-two years old, with sapwood three and one eighth inches 



thick and with one hundred and twelve layers of annual growth. 

 It is probable, therefore, that trees of this species live, under favor- 

 able conditions, far beyond three hundred years, which has usually 

 been considered the limit of the life of any of the American Fir- 

 trees. 



