PINACEAE. A. VEITCHII 61 



Picea Veitchii Murray in Proc. Eort. Soc. Lond. II. 347, fig. 52-62 (1862). 

 Abies spec, nova (Pichtae aff.) No. 9668 Regel in Ind. Sem. Hort. Petrop. 1865, 32. 

 Pinus selenolepis Parlatore in De Candolle, Prodr. XVI. pt. 2, 427 (1868). 

 Pinus \Abies) Veitchii McNab in Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. ser. 2, II. 686, t. 47, fig. 13 



(1877). 

 Abies Eichleri Lauche in Gartenzeit. I. 63, t. (1882). Hennings in Gartenfl. 



XXXIX. 377, fig. 66 (1890). 

 Abies Veitchii, var. Nikkoensis Mayr, Monog. Abiet. Jap. 39, 86 (1890). 

 Abies japonica Hort. ex Sargent in Garden & Forest, VI. 525 (as a synonym) (1893). 

 Pinus nephrolepis, var. veitchii Voss in Mitt. Deidsch. Dendr. Ges. XVI. 94 (1907). 

 Abies Veitchii, var. reflexa Koidzumi in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XXX. 327 (1916). 



I met with this Fir only on the high mountains of central Japan from those 

 of Shinano and Hida provinces in the south to those round Nikko in the north. 

 According to Mayr it occurs very sparingly on the summit of Ishitzuchi-yama 

 in Shikoku, but I have seen no specimens from that island. In central Japan 

 its altitudinal range is usually from 1300 to 2300 m., but on the slopes of 

 Fuji-san on the Gotemba side it descends to 1050 m. At its lower altitude it is 

 associated with Abies homolepis S. & Z. and at its highest with A. Mariesii Mast. 

 On Mt. Ontake in Shinano province it forms extensive forests mixed with Picea 

 jezo'ensis Carr., Tsuga diversifolia Mast., Birch and a few other broad-leaved 

 deciduous trees. On Tsubakura-dake, a granite peak in the same province, 

 this Fir is exceedingly rare and I saw only a few small trees. On the Yatsuga- 

 dake, on the borders of Kai and Shinano provinces, I saw, at about 2300 m. altitude, 

 almost pure forests of this Fir. Above Yumoto in the Nikko region it is abundant 

 in woods of Birch, Maple and other broad-leaved deciduous trees. On the Onsenga- 

 dake and over the Konseitoge Pass, both near Yumoto, it forms with Abies Mariesii 

 Lindl. nearly pure forests. North of the Nikko mountains I did not meet with A. 

 Veitchii. 



Veitch's Fir is the smallest of the Japanese Abies. The largest tree I saw was 

 24 m. tall and had a girth of 2.3 m. In the forests it is a narrow, tapering, pyram- 

 idal tree with very numerous short, slender branches. In more open country, 

 as on the slopes of Fuji-san, it is not so tall and the branches are longer. The 

 shoot is slender, more or less clothed with short, erect gray or occasionally 

 reddish gray pubescence and the winter-buds are reddish brown, small, sub- 

 globose to ovoid and resinous. The bark is perfectly smooth and very pale gray 

 (almost white) and resin-pustules are prominent. The leaves are soft to the touch, 

 shining dark green above, white beneath and truncate and emarginate at the apex. 

 The violet-purple cone is slender, cylindrical, from 4.5 to 6.5 cm. long and from 

 2 to 2.5 cm. broad. The bracts are very slightly or are distinctly exserted and 

 reflexed. The wood is white and of no particular value. Mayr has separated a 

 variety (nikkoensis), but the characters on which he relies are trivial and, more- 

 over, inconstant and I do not consider that it can be kept distinct from the 

 type. 



Abies Veitchii was discovered on Fuji-san in 1860 by John Gould Veitch, for 

 whom it is named. Veitch failed to obtain seeds, but in 1865 Maximowicz's Jap- 

 anese collector, Tschonoski, sent seeds to Petrograd, and these were distributed by 

 Regel under the name of Abies spec, nova (Pichtae aff.). Whether any plants are 

 in cultivation from this seed I do not know. In 1876 it was sent from Japan to 

 the Parsons nurseries at Flushing, New York, by Thomas Hogg, and for many 

 years was known in American gardens as Abies japonica Hort. In 1879 Maries 



