ABIES SIBIRICA. 



experienced in Great Britain will scarcely bear comparison. The 

 wood is of fair quality, but only used locally for building and 

 out-of-door carpentry. 



Transplanted into the milder climate of Great Britain Abies- 

 saclialinensis has proved disappointing. In the south of England it 

 begins to grow too early 'in the season, and the young shoots are 

 occasionally destroyed by late spring frosts, an injury which the tree is. 

 unable to repair during the ensuing season, and after being crippled in 

 this way a few times, it becomes a twiggy unshapely bush. Further north 

 as at Scone Palace, Murthly Castle, and Ochtertyre in Perthshire, it is. 

 better acclimatised and the young trees have the handsome appearance 

 they are reported to have in their native country; it also grows freely in 

 Massachusetts, U.S.A. The nearest affinity of A. saclialinensis is. 

 A. Veitchii; so nearly related indeed are they that the claim of the first 

 named to separate specific rank has been questioned ; as seen in this 

 country the distinctness of the one from the other is evident even on 

 superficial inspection. The most obvious characters in which they differ 

 may be thus noted : A. saclialinensis is a larger tree with a denser 

 habit and broader outline ; the leaves are longer, narrower, less crowd nl 

 and of a different shade of green than those of A. Veitcliii; the cones- 

 are larger, less strictly cylindric, with the bracts more prominently 

 exserted, and while growing, of a different colour. These differences seem, 

 however, to be broken through in a variety discovered by Dr. Mayr in 

 eastern Yeso (Osthokkaido), which, has shorter and broader leaves and 

 smaller cones with the bracts less prominently exserted than in the 

 typical A. sa<-lialinensis* Professor Sargent mentions another variety 

 with red bark, red wood and red cone-bracts discovered by Professor 

 Miyabe near Sapporo, f 



Abies sibirica. 



A medium-sized tree, varying in height from 30 to 75 feet, usually 

 with a pyramidal or spire-like crown. Trunk slender and covered with 

 smooth greyish brown bark. Branches close-set and spreading 

 horizontally, the lowermost often depressed ; ramification lateral or 

 pseudo-distichous. J Branchlets numerous, with smooth pale brown bark 

 and densely clothed with foliage. Buds small, globose, with broadly 

 ovate perular scale and usually covered with a film of whitish resin. 

 Leaves persistent five seven years, narrowly linear, obtuse or emarginate, 

 0-5 1 inch long, bright grass-green with a narrow median groove 

 above, with a relatively broad keel and a narrow stomatiferous band 

 on each side of it beneath ; those on the upper side of the shoot 

 erect or falcately curved forwards, those on the under side pseudo- 

 distichous in three four ranks; the leaves on the fertile branchlets 

 stouter and more acute. Staminate flowers $ crowded near the apex of 

 the shoots, globose-cylindric, 0'125 inch long, bright yellow tinged with 

 red at the top and surrounded at the base by broadly oval involucral 

 bracts in two series. Cones solitary or in approximate pairs, 23 inches 



* Abietineen des Japanischen Reiches, 42, Tafel III. 



f Forest Flora of Japan, 83. t In the branchlets examined. 



Communicated by Mr. Croucher from Ochtertyre, and Mr. McLagan from The Lairnies, 

 Perthshire. 



