76 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS 



The ideally pectinate arrangement of its long 

 grass-green shiny leaves, which span from tip to tip 

 a good 3 inches, its upper rank leaves half the length 

 of the lower, its notched apex and clearly-showing 

 white stomata bands, all conspire to help identifica- 

 tion. 



Again, its olive-green and sometimes orange-brown 

 tinted branchlets, with what is generally described 

 as reddish, but sometimes appears as almost white, 

 pubescence, are also characteristic. Its grey bark, 

 with here and there the 'appearance of faint orange 

 tints, is smooth but for being plentifully covered 

 with blisters, which when broken emit a most fragrant 

 flow of turpentine, of a most gratifying nature to the 

 scent-sense of man and woman. 



There are other lesser aids to the recognition of a 

 tree that future generations may have more to say 

 about than we have, at such a comparatively early 

 stage of its existence with us. 



A. LOWIANA. 



At every impulse of the moving breeze 

 The fir grove murmurs with a sea-like 



a sea-like sound. 



Wordsworth. 



Sometimes we have heard the A. Lowiana compared 

 with the A. Grandis. But the A. Lowiana has its 

 white stomatic bands on both surfaces of its leaves, 

 while the A. Grandis has stomata only upon the 

 lower surface. This should at once in theory — if 

 theory goes for anything — dispose of any suspicion 

 of their connection. If another proof were wanted, 

 there exists the fact that the leaves in the upper 

 rank of the Lowiana are nearly as long as those in 

 the lower rank, while in the A. Grandis they are 

 only a little more than half the length. Most of us 

 have been taught that if we wish to accumulate a 

 little mental confusion between any two trees, 



