ABIES NUMIDICA. 529 



secure good specimens a space with a radius of not less than 25 feet 

 should be provided for them. 



Under cultivation Abies Nordmanniana sports into many varieties 

 in the seed bed, the deviations from the common type being 

 observable chiefly in the habit or foliage of the plant. In continental 

 nurseries some of these seminal forms have been distinguished by 

 name as aurea, brevifolia, glauca, pendula, refracta, robusta, etc. 



Abies numidica. 



A slender tree of moderate dimensions, the trunk rarely exceeding 

 50 60 feet in height and 10 18 inches in diameter near the base 

 and with a dense pyramidal crown. Bark of trunk ash or greyish brown, 

 slightly rugose. Branches in pseudo-whorls, spreading or ascending. 

 Branchlets distichous and opposite, covered with light reddish brown 

 bark ; on the younger shoots marked with shallow oblique ridges. Buds 

 globose-conic, sub-acute, about 0'5 inch long, light chestnut-brown with 

 ovate, obtuse, closely imbricated and minutely fringed perular scales. 

 Leaves spirally crowded, persistent seven nine years, linear, obtuse or 

 emarginate, slightly narrowed at the base, bright grass-green with a 

 narrow median groove above, with thickened midrib and margins and 

 two white stomatiferous bands beneath, 0'5 1 inch long, the longer 

 ones on the under side pseudo-distichous in two three ranks, the 

 shorter ones on the upper side erect or sub-erect. Cones solitary or 

 in clusters of three five, sub-cylindric, slightly tapering at the base and 

 apex, 5 6 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. Scales reniform, 

 contracted to a short claw, closely imbricated, the outer exposed margin 

 entire and incurved ; bracts shorter than the scale, narrowly spathulate, 

 mucronate. Seed wings oblong, truncate, nearly as long as the scale. 



Abies numidica, De Lannoy ex Carriere, Rev. Hort. 1866, pp. 106, 203 ; 

 Traite Conif. ed. II. 305 ; and Van Houtte's Flore des Serres, XVII. 9, t. 1717. 

 Masters in Gard. Chron. III. ser. 3 (1888), p. 140 (in part and excl. figs.); and 

 Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 194. Beissner, Nadelholzk. 447. 



A. Pinsapo var. baborensis, Cosson in Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, VIII. 607 

 (nomen nudum 1861). Willkomm, Forstl. Fl. ed. II. 111. 



A. baborensis, McNab in Proceed. R. Irish Acad. II. ser. 2, 697, tig. 27 (1877). 



Picea numidica, Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 220. 



Pinus Pinsapo, Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 423 (not Boissier). 



Eng. Algerian Fir. Fr. Sapin d'Algerie. Germ. Numidische Weisstanne. Ital. 

 A bete d' Algeria. 



The Algerian Fir, so far as at present known, has a very 

 restricted habitat on a part of the Atlas mountains lying within 

 the province of Kabylia (the ancient Numidia), known as Babor and 

 Thababor, at an altitude of 4,000 to 6,000 feet; it occurs chiefly 

 on the northern and eastern slopes of these mountains associated with 

 Cedrus atlantica and Taxus baccata, growing on limestone rocks with 

 a scanty covering of soil, but nowhere abundant. At this altitude, 

 snow falls in enormous quantities from December to April, and which 

 in the more exposed ravines is scarcely ever absent. The following 

 account of its discovery and introduction into European gardens is 

 derived from Carriere's "Traite General des Coniferes," loc. cit. supra. 



MM 



