5() PINACEAE 



beneath with a broad depressed stomatal band on either side, contracted at 

 base into a very short petiole, acutish, obtuse or slightly notched at summit, 

 spreading in two ranks or more or less erect by a twist in the very short 

 petiole; staminate catkins cylindric, straw-yellow or red, y 2 inch long or less; 

 cones brown, oblong, rounded at summit and base, 2 to 5y 2 inches long, 1 to 

 1% inches in diameter; scales broad and rounded; bracts about % as long as 

 the scales, roundish and finely toothed, often with a notch at top and usually 

 terminating in a short slender point ; seeds 5 lines long, the wing 6 or 7 lines 

 long, truncate at the end, 5 or 6 lines wide, widening towards the apex. 



Mountain slopes: Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, north to southern Ore- 

 gon, east to Colorado and New Mexico, south into Lower California. One of 

 the four most abundant forest trees in the main timber belt of the Sierra 

 Nevada, chiefly between 3,500 and 7,500 feet in the north and 5,000 and 

 8.300 feet in the south. High North Coast Ranges from the Siskiyous and 

 Marble Mt. (where it is abundant) south along the Yollo Bolly range to 

 Snow Mt., thence a gap of 360 miles to Mt. Pinos and the San Rafael Mts. in 

 South Coast Ranges. Abundant on the summits of the mountains of Southern 

 California (5,000 to 11.500 feet). Makes second grade saw-timber, useful for 

 fruit boxes and ordinary construction. Also, but wrongly, called Silver Fir. 



Refs. ABIES CONCOLOR Lincll. & Gord., Jour. Hort. Soc. Lond. vol. 5, p. 210 (1850), the type 

 from near Santa Fe, New Mexico, Aug. Fendler. A. lowiana Murray, Proc. E. Hort. Soc. vol. 

 3, p. 317, figs. (1863). 



A. LASIOCARPA Nuttall. Alpine Fir. Related to preceding; cones 2y% to 

 4 inches long, the rounded or emarginate bracts with long slender but not 

 exserted tips. Rocky and Cascade mountains to Alaska. 



A. AMABILIS Forbes. Amabilis Fir. Cones 31/2 to 6 inches long, the slender- 

 tipped bracts l /2 as long as scales. Cascade Mts. 



2. A. grandis Lindl. LOWLAND FIR. Forest tree 40 to 160 or rarely 275 

 feet high with horizontal branches, the trunk 1 to 3 feet in diameter and vested 

 in a white or light brown bark which is very smooth or shallowly broken 

 into low flat ridges; in section the inner bark light brown, the outer bark 

 dark red with a mesh of purple lines running through it; horizontal branches 

 with the leaves spreading by a twist at base in two ranks and so making a 

 flat spray, or in any event tending to right and left, those originating on top of 

 the stem having the peculiarity of being much shorter than those coming from 

 the sides ; leaves flat, 1 to 2 inches long, notched at apex, the upper side dark 

 lustrous green and with a median channel, the lower side with two white bands 

 separated by a ridge ; staminate catkins straw-color, cylindric, 5 or 6 lines 

 long, borne on a peduncle 3 or 4 lines long, the crest of the anthers mostly 

 2-toothed ; ovulate catkins borne in upper half of the tree ; cones long-oblong in 

 outline, 2i/o to 4 inches long. 1% to 1% inches in diameter; scales with a broad 

 rounded summit, and narrow stalk-like base, broader than long; bracts very 

 small, with a short awl-like point set on the roundish apex, half as long as the 

 scales ; seeds drab-color, 4% lines long with a wing somewhat longer and twice 

 as broad. 



North Coast Ranges, along ocean bluffs or scattered through the Redwood 

 Belt, from near Fort Ross on the Sonoma coast northward and far northward 

 to Oregon and Washington where it is abundant and attains its best develop- 

 ment. In California it grows to greatest size in association with the Redwood 



