520 ABIES MARIESII. 



As a species, the nearest affinity of Abies maynijica is A. noliUs 

 with which it has been often confused. The economic properties of 

 A. magnified, are not very favourably reported on ; the wood is light 

 and rather coarse-grained, durable in contact with the soil but liable 

 to warp ; it is largely used for fuel and for coarse timber constructions. 



Abies Mariesii. 



A medium-sized tree 40 50 feet high but at its southern limit 

 60 75 feet high with close-set, relatively short spreading branches 

 forming a compact pyramid. Branches stoutish, covered with brown 

 bark marked with circular scars of fallen leaves. Branchlets distichous 

 and opposite, given off from their primaries at an angle of about 45, 

 the young shoots with a dense brown pubescence. Buds small, globose 

 with dark brown closely appressed perulae. Leaves 0'25 0*75 inch 

 long, narrowly linear, obtuse or emarginate, tapering at the base into 

 a very short petiole ; the midrib depressed on the upper and prominent 

 on the lower side, dark green above, paler with two whitish stomatiferous 

 bands below, the longer leaves on the lower side of the branchlets 

 pseudo-distichous in three four ranks, the shorter ones on the upper 

 side pointing forwards and upwards and loosely imbricated. Staminate 

 flowers not seen. Cones broadly fusiform or sub-cylindric, narrowed at 

 the base and apex, deep violet-blue changing to dark brown when 

 mature scales suborbicular, somewhat broader than long, with a cuneate 

 base and an entire slightly incurved apical margin ; bracts half as 

 long as the scales, obovate-oblong, retuse, with a small central mucro. 

 Seed wings broadly wedge shaped, entire. 



Abies Mariesii, Masters in Gard. Chron. XII. (1879), p. 788, with fig. ; Journ. 

 Linn. Soc. XVIII. 519, ; and Journ. R. Hort. Soc XIV. 193. Kent in Veitch's- 

 Manual, ed. I. 100. Mayr, Abiet. des Jap. Reiches, 40, Tafel II. tig 5. 

 Beissner, Nadelholzk. 455. 



This very distinct Silver Fir was discovered by Mr. Charles Maries 

 on Mount Hakkocla near Aomori in the extreme north of Hondo 

 in 1878 ; he also met with it in Nikko 011 the central mountains, 

 and recently it has been found in two or three localities on the 

 mountains of southern Yeso by Japanese botanists. On Hakkocla it 

 is common at 4,000 to 5,000 feet elevation mixed with deciduous 

 trees ; in Nikko it ascends considerably higher but occurs more 

 sparingly. Abies Mariesii is thence an alpine tree with a comparatively 

 restricted habitat, occupying a geographical position between that 

 of A. Vdtclui and A. sachalinensis ; its nearest affinity is, however, 

 A. homolepis. Nothing is known of its economic properties. 



Seeds were sent to Messrs. Veitch by Maries in 1879 but very few 

 plants were raised from them, and from these as well as from the 

 younger seedlings raised from a consignment received ten years later, 

 no definite statement respecting the suitableness of the species for 

 British arboriculture can be made further than that it has proved to 

 be quite hardy but of very slow growth. The young plants in this 

 country have a Tsuga-like aspect with the leaves much crowded and 

 shorter than those of any other Abies. 



