ABIES 1'ECTIXATA. 531 



.Equi Trojani. 



Leaves acute and spine-tipped as in Abies /v^/m/owm. Cones shorter and 

 broader, with the bracts more prominently exserted' than in A. pectinata. 



A. pectinata var. Equi Trojani, Boissier, Fl. orient. V. 701. Beissner Nadel- 

 holzk. 431. 



The common Silver Fir has an extensive geographical range in 

 central and southern Europe, but at the present time its indigenous 

 growth is confined chiefly to the mountain districts. Its distribution 

 in Central Europe may be said in general terms to extend from 

 the Pyrenees to the Carpathian mountains, and from the Vosges 

 and Hartz mountains to the Alps. In the Mediterranean region 

 east of the Pyrenees, it occurs on the mountains of Corsica ; 

 it follows the trend of the Apennines through Italy ; it appears 

 ;again on the mountains of Thrace and Macedonia and beyond the 

 European limits, on Perindagh and Olympus in Bithynia. On the 

 Carpathian mountains it ascends to 3,000 feet above sea-level, on 

 the Vosges to 4,000 feet, on the Jura to nearly < r .,000 feet, on the 

 Alps of Lombardy to 6,000 feet, and on the Pyrenees to 6,500 feet. 

 The largest pure forests of A. pectinata still remaining are on the 

 French slopes of the Pyrenees, on the Vosges and on the Jura ; 

 in other parts of its range it is more scattered and associated with 

 other trees. It attains its greatest development in the humid 

 mountain tracts of central Europe ; individual trees nearly 200 feet 

 high have been observed in south Germany.* 



The common Silver Fir was one of the first exotic coniferous trees 

 introduced into Great Britain, but the precise date of introduction is 

 unknown. London, quoting Evelyn, states that a Silver Fir two years 

 old was planted at Harefield Park in Middlesex in 1603, and this 

 was the first planted in England. In this country its growth during 

 the first few years from the seed is very slow, only attaining the 

 height of a few inches, but after it has become established its 

 progress is more rapid. About the twentieth year and during its full 

 vigour for some years afterwards, the leader shoot will increase from 

 two to three feet annually. Unless planted in a sheltered situation the 

 Silver Fir is liable to injury by spring frosts in its first stages of 

 growth, as the young shoots throw off their perular covering early 

 in the season ; but when older, the spring frosts are less injurious, 

 and under ordinary circumstances the Silver Fir has attained dimensions 

 scarcely yet surpassed by any other introduced coniferous tree. 

 "Willkomin states that it completes its upward growth between one 

 hundred and eighty and two hundred years when the top becomes 

 flattened but the tree lives on for several hundred years more. Numbers 

 of fine specimens of great size dispersed over Great Britain and Ireland 

 bear witness to its suitableness as a park and landscape tree as well 



* The geographical distribution of the common Silver Fir has been carefully investigated by 

 AVillkomm, and the limits of its indigenous growth traced out in his " Forstliche Flora von 

 Deutschland und Oesterreich," from which the particulars given above are chiefly derived. 



