ABIES LASIOCARPA. 



515 



The bracliypliylla of Maximowicz being the more recent name must 

 therefore sink as a synonym of the older homolepis. 



Abies homolepis was introduced into European gardens about the 

 year 1870. Both in Great Britain and in the north-eastern States of 

 America it has proved to be one of the hardiest and most rapid 

 growing of Abies, adding annually from 15 to 24 inches to the height 

 of the leader shoot according to locality, and forming in a few years 

 an elegant tree of broadly conical or pyramidal outline. It thrives in 

 many situations not too much exposed to cold winds, and has 

 adapted itself to the British climate better than any other Japanese 

 Abies. 



Abies lasiocarpa. 



A tall tree with an elongated spire-like top 80 100 feet high with 

 a trunk 2 3 feet in diameter ; at its greatest development nearly 

 double these dimensions and at its northern and highest vertical limits 

 reduced to a low bush or prostrate shrub. Bark of trunk of young 



trees, smooth silvery grey ; of 

 old trees, divided by shallow 

 fissures and roughened by 

 thick closely appressed scales 

 which are light reddish brown 

 or nearly white on the surface. 

 Branches short, crowded, the 

 lower ones slightly pendulous, 

 but on old trees the trunk 

 is bare for nearly half the 

 height. Branch lets distichous 

 and mostly opposite with pale 

 brown rugose bark. Buds 

 small, globose-conic, with red- 

 dish brown perular scales. 

 Leaves linear, crowded, nearly 

 erect by a twist at their 

 base, 0-5 1'75 inch long, 

 rounded or emarginate at 

 the apex, on the fertile 

 branchlets with a short callous 

 tip; with a median groove 

 011 the upper and two 

 whitish stomatiferous bands 

 011 the under side. Stami- 

 na te flowers cylindric, 0'5 

 0-75 inch long with dark 

 indigo-blue anthers. Cones 

 oblong - cylindric, rounded, 



truncate or depressed at 

 the narrowed apex, 2 '5 4 

 inches long and 1 1'5 inch 

 in diameter. Scales gradually 

 narrowed from a broad rounded apex to a short -cuneate base, 

 iially longer than broad; bracts oblong-obovate, about one-third the 



Fig. 134. 



A cluster of young cones of Abies lasiocarpa. 

 (From the Gardeners' Chronicle.) 



US 



