ABIES SACHALINENSIS. 537 



about 4,000 feet altitude. It was afterwards seen in other pl;i<vs 

 by botanica-l explorers of the country but always at a high elevation, 

 on some of the mountains at the extreme verge of arborescent 

 vegetation where it becomes dwarfed to a flat-headed bush.* It is 

 now known to be widely distributed over the Mexican Cordilleras 

 at altitudes ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 feet, occasionally descending 

 to 4,000 feet, from the Sierra Madre southwards into Guatemala, 

 where it was seen by Mr. G. Ure Skinner and after him by 

 Dr. Seemann. A. rdigiosa is therefore the most southern species 

 of the genus, and the only one found wild within the tropics. 

 The inhabitants of Mexico use branches of it for the decoration 

 of their churches and cemeteries, a custom which suggested the 

 specific name rdigiosa. 



The Mexican Sacred Fir was introduced in 1838 by the Horticultural 

 Society of London through their collector, Tlieodor Hartweg, who met 

 with it at Anganguca (not found on any map to which I have access), 

 and afterwards in the Real del Monte district. The changeable 

 climate of Great Britain is, however, unsuitable for it ; the recurrence 

 at intervals of exceptionally severe winters has proved fatal to it. 

 In a few localities where the extremes of our climate are not 

 experienced, as in Cornwall, the south of Ireland and some other 

 places, Abies religiosa grows more or less vigorously, and at Fota 

 Island near Cork it has attained the dimensions of a large tree.f 



A bies sachalinensis. 



A tree 100 125 feet high with a cylindric or slightly tapering trunk 

 2*5 3*5 feet in diameter covered with greyish bark, and at its best 

 development of pyramidal outline with spreading or slightly ascending 

 branches ramified disticliously. Branchlets opposite, rarely alternate, with 

 <m occasional adventitious weaker shoot beneath the normal pair, the 

 youngest shoots pubescent. Buds small, cylindric-conic with reddish 

 brown perular scales. Leaves persistent five seven years, narrowly 

 linear, obtuse or emarginate, 0*5 1*5 inch long, spirally inserted, the 

 longer ones on the under side of the branches and branchlets pseudo- 

 distichous in three four ranks ; the shorter ones on the upper side 

 pointing forwards at a small angle to the axis ; on the fertile branchlets 

 all more or less falcately curved upwards ; bright lustrous green with a 

 depressed median line above, with a glaucous stomatiferous band on each 

 side of the thickened midrib beneath. Cones cylindric, slightly tapering 

 towards the obtuse apex, 3 inches long and 1*25 inch in diameter; scales 

 transversely oblong with an inflexed denticulate outer margin and 

 attached to the axis by a broad cimeatc claw ; bracts longer than the 

 scale, obovate acuminate, the acumen with the exserted part of the blade 

 reflexed. Seed wings obovate truncate. 

 * By Deppe and Schiede on the mountains of Orizaba. 



t The only specimens of Abies religiosa known to the author, besides the Fota Island 

 tree, are at Kilmacurragh, Co. Wicklow ; Menabilly, Cornwall : Castle Kennedy in Wigtown- 

 shire; and Ballamoor, Isle of Man (if still living), but there may be more. One of the finest 

 specimens in the country, growing at Fota Island, was blown down by the fierce gale that 

 occurred in the night of September 25th, 1396 ; it had attained a height of 70 feet. 



