CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUPS OF SILVER FIRS 6q 



included in this list by authorities, A specimen sent 

 me distinctly showed them. 



Branchlets and Shoots, appearance and composition 

 of. — Points of difference to be noted : (i) the colour 

 of the shoot ; (2) whether downy or showing here 

 and there evidences of scattered pubescence, or 

 without any pubescence at all — that is to say, 

 glabrous ; (3) whether in composition it is corrugated 

 and fissured, or whether it is smooth, or perhaps in 

 some instances slightly wavy, but not fissured with 

 deepened grooves, as are the representatives of the 

 corrugated clique. 



This difference, as between what is corrugated and 

 slightly wavy, we own reads somewhat perplexingly. 

 It is far more clearly explained in the illustrations 

 appended than by any mere little collection of words 

 strung together by an amateur student, with best 

 intent of purpose but with an acknowledged in- 

 capacity to make explicit this particular point by 

 use of script alone ; but if these illustrations are even 

 cursorily examined with the accompanying text, they 

 ought to be of assistance to the aims of any identifier. 



The difference between corrugated and smooth 

 surface calls for little more strain on the powers of 

 perception of ordinary man to discern than an 

 opinion invited upon the difference in outward and 

 superficial shape of a roof of corrugated iron and a 

 covering of flat undented sheet-iron on some wayside 

 farm building. 



Out of the twenty-six species of Silver Firs that 

 have been called attention to, eight are corrugated, 

 or if another simile be permitted, shaped more 

 after the manner of waves in a choppy sea than the 

 more gradual and gentle gradients of a ridge-and- 

 furrow field in a Midland county, which would be 

 more descriptive of the branchlet explained and 

 portrayed as of undulate surface. 



