134 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CONIFERS. 



grow darker. The leaves are marked on the upper surface with deep sharply defined grooves which 

 sometimes do not reach quite to the apex, and are rounded and ohscurely ribbed on the lower surface 

 stomatiferous above and below with numerous rows of stomata, dark or light blue-green, and often very 

 glaucous during their first season, with generally a single fibro-vascular bundle, resin ducts close to the 

 epidermis of the lower surface and midway between the edges and the midrib, and hypoderm cells in an 

 interrupted band chiefly confined to the middle of the leaf on the upper and lower surfaces and to its 

 edges ; the leaves are crowded in several rows and are erect, those on the lower side of the branch by 

 the twisting of their bases, shorter on the upper side than on the lower and strongly incurved with the 

 points erect or pointing away from the end of the branch 5 on young plants and on the lower sterile 

 branches of old trees they are flat, oblanceolate, rounded and usually slightly notched at the apex, from 

 an inch to an inch and a half long and about a sixteenth of an inch wide; on fertile branches, M^here 

 they are more crowded than on sterile branches, they are much thickened and often almost equally four- 

 sided, acuminate and furnished at the apex with long rigid callous tips, and generally from one half to 

 three quarters of an inch in length ; and on leading shoots they are flat, gradually narrowed from the 

 base, which is about an eighth of an inch wide, acuminate, with long rigid points, and about an inch 

 long. The staminate flowers are cylindrical and from three quarters of an inch to an inch in length, 

 with reddish purple anthers, and at maturity are suspended on slender pedicels from one quarter to 

 nearly one half of an inch long. The pistillate flowers, which are mostly confined to the upper 

 branches, but are often scattered over those below them, are cylindrical, from an inch to an inch and a 

 half long, and from one quarter to one third of an inch in diameter, with broad rounded scales much 

 smaller than their nearly orbicular bracts, which are erose on the margins and contracted above into 

 slender elongated strongly reflexed tips. The cones are oblong-cylindrical, slightly narrowed, but full 

 and rounded at the apex, from four to five inches long and from two to two and a half inches in 

 diameter, purple or olive-brown and pubescent, with scales which are about one third wider than they 

 are long, and gradually narrowed from the rounded apex to the base, or more often are full at the 



r 



sides, rounded and denticulate above the middle and then abruptly contracted and wedge-shaped below ; 

 they are nearly or entirely covered by their strongly reflexed pale green bracts which are spatulate, 

 full and rounded above and fimbriate on the margins, with broad fohaceous midribs produced above 

 the body of the bract into short broad flattened points. The seeds are half an inch in length, pale 

 reddish brown, and about as long as their wings, which are gradually narrowed from below to the nearly 

 truncate slightly rounded apex. 



Abies nohilis inhabits the Cascade Mountains from the slopes of Mt. Baker in northern 

 Washington * to the valley of the Mackenzie River in Oregon,^ and the coast ranges from the northern 

 slopes of the Olympic Mountains in Washington ^ as far south, at least, as the valley of the Nestucca 

 River in Oregon. Probably attaining its largest size on the high coast mountains of Oregon, it is most 

 abundant on the western slopes of the Cascade Range in Washington and northern Oregon, where it is 

 common from elevations of two thousand five hundred up to five thousand feet above the sea^ and 

 forms the largest part of the forest between elevations of three and four thousand feet, mingling below 



^ During the summer of 1897 Abies nohilis was found on the 

 south side of Mt. Baker by Mr. A. J. Johnson. (See Coville, Gar- 

 den and Forest, x. 517.) 



As the northern end of the Cascade Mountains has been very 

 little explored, Ahies nohilis may be supposed to range somewhat to 

 the north of Mt. Baker, which is the most northerly of the high 

 volcanic peaks of the Cascades, and possibly to reach the borders 

 of British Columbia. 



The Fir found by Lyall on the Cascade Mountains, near Lake 

 Chilukweyuk, and doubtfully referred by him to Picea nohilis (pal- 



samea?) (Jour. Linn. Soc. vii. 143), may possibly have been Abies 

 nohilis at a more northern station than it has since been seen, and 

 north of the boundary of the United States, but I have not seen the 

 specimen. 



2 See Coville, l. c. 



3 In August, 1896, I found a single small plant of A hies nohilis 

 on a slope above the Solduc River at an elevation of three thousand 

 feet above the sea and near the northern base of the Olympic 

 Mountains, and the following year this species was seen by Dr. 

 C. Hart Merriam in the same region. 



