ABIES HOMOLEPIS. 



Abies homolepis. 



A massive mountain tree 7090 feet high, but occasionally higher at 

 its lower vertical limit ; in old age with a broad round head, the upper- 

 most branches longer than those below them. Bark of trunk greyish 

 brown with broad, shallow fissures exposing a reddish brown inner 

 cortex. Branchlets rigid, distichous and opposite with an occasional 

 weaker shoot on the under side of the normal pair ; bark light tawny- 

 brown distinctly fluted with cortical outgrowths obliquely decurrent from 

 the pulvini of the leaves. Buds broadly conic with ovate-lanceolate, 

 chestnut-brown perular scales. Leaves persistent five seven years, 

 linear, mucronate or obtuse, 0'75 1'25 inch long, spirally inserted but 

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

 grass-green with a narrow median groove above, with two white 

 stomatiferous bands beneath. Cones sessile, variable in size, cylindric, 

 obtuse, 34-5 inches long and 1175 inch in diameter, at first violet- 

 purple changing to dark brown when mature ; scales closely imbricated, 

 reniform with a short, cuneiform claw, the entire outer margin incurved ; 

 bracts shorter than the scales, spathulate, mucronate with notched margins! 

 Seed wings broadly obovate. 



Abies homolepis, Siebold and Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. II. 17, t. 108 (1842). Carriere, 

 Traite Conif. ed. I. 215 (1855) ; and ed. II. 290 (1867). Masters in Journ Linn 

 Soc. XVIII. 518; Gard. Chron. XII. (1879), p. 823. with fig.; and Joiirn. R. 

 Hort. Soc. XIV. 192. Mayr, Abiet. des Jap. Reiches, 35, Taf'el II. fig. 3. 



A. brachyphylla, Maximowicz, Melanges Biolog. Bull. Acad. St. Petersb. X. 

 488 (1866). Masters in Gard. Chron. XII. (1879), p. 556, with figs.; Journ. 

 Linn. Soc. XVIII. 515, with figs.; and Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 189. Kent in 

 Veitch's Manual, ed. I. 88, with fig. Beissner, Nadelholzk. 453. 



A. Harryana, McNab. in Proceed. R. Irish Acad. II. ser. 2, 689, fig. 16 (1877). 



Picea brachyphylla, Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 201. 



Pinus homolepis, Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 101. 



P. brachyphylla, Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 424. 



Eng. Nikko Silver Fir. Germ. Nikko-Tanne. Jap. Take-momi (Mountain-Fir), 

 Ura-shiro Momi (White beneath). 



Abies homolepis is a native of the cooler temperate region of Japan 



lying between the thirty-sixth and thirty-eighth parallels of north 



latitude. It is abundant on the central mountains in Nikko, 



ascending to 5,000 feet, in places forming small stretches of pure 



forest, but mostly "scattered singly or in small groups through 



the birch and oak woods just below the belt of Hemlock Firs." 



The wood, which much resembles that of A. firma, is not much 



used on account of the inaccessibility of the places where it grows. 



Siebold and Zuccarini's figures of this species, including only two 



branchlets with foliage and two immature cones, long remained an 



enigma. By some authors they were referred to Abies firma ; by 



others they were held to represent a distinct species ; whilst others 



considered them to belong to the A. Irachypliylla of Maximowicz. 



The question was decided in favour of the last named view by 



Dr. Heinrich Mayr, the author of the excellent " Monographic der 



Abietineen des Japanischen Reiches," during his residence in Japan, 



and whose opportunities of observing the trees in situ were far better 



than those of any previous European botanist who visited that country. 



LL 



