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SOUTHERN BALSAM (Southern Balsam Fir) 



(Ahics frasrrl Poir.) 



THE southern balsam, also known as mountain 

 balsam, Fraser fir, and locally as slie-balsam, is 

 found on our highest mountains, usually associated 

 with red spruce, from which it can easily be dis- 

 tinguished by its cones and leaves. It prefers moist, 

 cool slopes at elevations of 4,000 to 0,700 feet. It is 

 a tree of medium size, 40 to 70 feet high and 1 to 



SOUTHERN BALSAM 

 One-half natural size. 



•ver 2 feet in diameter. The bark on the younger 

 trees is pale gray, smooth, thin and prominently 

 marked by "blisters" filled with resin or balsam. 

 The branches are produced regularly in whorls on 

 the young tree, and the head retains its pointed 

 pyramidal shape until old age. 



The leaves are flat, linear, one-half to one inch 

 long, with point rounded and often notched, dark 

 green and lustrous above, silvery white beneath, ar- 

 ranged on the twig apparently in two ranks. 



The flowers are of two kinds, the male yellow 

 tinged with red, the female cone-shaped, and the 

 prominent yellow-green bracts are spine-tipped. The 

 fruit is an upright purple cone, the long yellow- 

 green bracts, however, often making it appear this 

 latter color. The seeds have very Avide wings, and 

 when ripe, fall together with the scales and bracts 

 of the cone, leaving the hard central axis standing 

 upright on the twig. 



The wood is light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained. 

 It is used for construction lumber and with spruce 

 for paper pulp 



