ABIES AMABILLS. 439 



A. sachalinensis in Asia ; on the other hand, one species, A. religiosa, 

 has its home within the tropics in south Mexico and Guatemala.' 

 With the exception of A. balsamea, A. grandis and A. sibirica, 

 all the species are mountain trees ascending to elevations above 

 sea-level, which vary greatly in different regions, but which are 

 evidently influenced by the trend and altitude of the mountain 

 chains and by the latitude of the place. In their economic aspect 

 the Silver Firs are inferior to the Spruce Firs and Larches and even 

 to many of the true Pines ; their timber is, for the most part, coarse- 

 grained, soft and perishable, but much used where trees are abundant. 

 In Great Britain all the Abies are used solely for ornamental 

 planting, A. pectinate being an occasional exception and employed 

 by the forester for purposes of utility. 



Abies amabilis. 



A lofty tree often 150 200 feet high, but at high altitudes not 

 more than 60 80 feet high with a trunk 3 4 feet in diameter 

 near the base. Bark 'of old trees thick and fissured into reddish grey 

 plates, of young trees thin and quite smooth ; in Great Britain usually 

 roughened by numerous warty protuberances. Branches relatively short, 

 the lowermost depressed, those above horizontal or slightly ascending. 

 Branchlets distichous and opposite, spreading at nearly a right angle 

 to their primaries, the youngest shoots hairy (hirtellous). Buds small, 

 ovoid-conic, with dark reddish brown perulse. Leaves persistent eight 

 ten years, spirally crowded, those on the lower side of the branchlets 

 by a twist of the short petiole pseudo-distichous in three-four ranks ; 

 those on the upper side more or less appressed to the shoot and 

 pointing forwards, linear, flat and emarginate ; on fertile and vigorous 

 branchlets acute, 0'75 1*5 inch long, dark green above with a slight 

 azure tint peculiar to this species and by which it may often be 

 distinguished; with a glaucous stomatiferous band on each side -of the 

 narrow midrib beneath. Staminate flowers* often densely clustered, 

 cylindric, obtuse, about 0'5 inch long, with dark red-crimson anthers. 

 Cones cylindric, slightly tapering to a retuse apex, 4 5*5 inches long 

 and 2 2*5 inches in diameter, dark violet-blue changing with age to 

 dark brown ; scales not much broader than long, sub-rhomboidal, 

 inflexed at the apical margin ; bracts half as long as the scales, obovate- 

 oblong, abruptly contracted to an acuminate tip. Seed wings obliquely 

 cuneate, almost as broad as long. 



Abies amabilis. Forbes, Pinet. Woburn, 125, t. 44 (1839). Carriere, Traits 

 Conif. ed. II. 296. Hoopes, Evergreens, 209. McNab in Proceed. R. Irish Acad 

 II. ser. 2. 677, tig. 3. Engelmann in Gard. Chron. XIV. (1880), p. 720, with 

 figs. Masters in Journ. Linn. Soc. XXII. 171, with tigs; Gard. Chron. III. 

 ser. 3 (1888), p. 754, with fig. ; and Jonrn. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 189. Beissner, 

 Nadelholzk. 468, with tig. Sargent, Silva N. Anier. XII. 125. t. 614. 



Picea amabilis, London, Arb. et Frut. Brit. IV. 2342, with figs, (in part, 1838). 

 Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 213, excl. sjn. lasiocarpa. 



Communicated by Mr. Harding from Orton Hall, and by Mr. Herrin from Dropmore 



