506 



ABIES FIRMA. 



Abies flrma. 



A tall tree often attaining a height of 120 feet under cultivation, 

 with an open head of irregular outline, the trunk 4 6 feet in 

 diameter covered with greyish bark fissured into small plates. In 

 Great Britain the bark of the oldest trees is pale brown with numerous 

 transverse wrinkles. Branchlets distichous and opposite with an 

 occasional adventitious weaker growth beneath the normal pair. Buds small, 



A B 



Fig. 130. Foliage of Abies finna. A, sterile B, fertile branchlet. 



ovoid-globose with ovate, chestnut-brown perular scales. Leaves persistent 

 seven nine years, narrowly linear-lanceolate, 0*5 175 inch long, 

 spirally inserted ; on the lower sterile branches bifid at . the apex, 

 pungent and pseudo-distichous in three four ranks ; on the upper 

 fertile branches incurved with an obtuse or emarginate apex ; dark lustrous 

 green with a shallow median groove above, paler and faintly glaucescent 

 along the stomatiferous bands below. Staminate flowers * numerous 

 along the under side of short lateral and terminal branchlets, ovoid- 

 conic, 0*5 inch long, surrounded at the base by broadly ovate, scale- 

 like involucral bracts in two three series. Cones cylindric or conic- 

 cylindric, variable in size, 4 6 inches long and 1 '5 2 inches in 

 diameter ; scales transversely reniform, suddenly contracted on the 



* Communicated from Tortworth Court, Gloucestershire. 



