ABIES VEITCHII. 



Abies Veitchii. 



541 



A slender tree with an average height of 6070 feet, but 

 sometimes attaining a height of upwards of 90 feet. Bark of trunk 

 greyish white arid smooth even in old age. Branches spreading or 

 slightly ascending; ramification distichous and opposite with an occasional 

 adventitious weaker shoot above or beneath the normal pair. Buds 

 ovoid-cylindric, 0'2 0'35 inch long, with dark chestnut-brown perular 

 scales. Leaves spirally crowded, persistent four five years, narrowly 

 linear, emarginate or obtuse, bright grass-green with a median groove 

 011 the upper face, with a relatively broad silvery white stomatiferous. 

 band on each side of the midrib beneath, 0*5 1*25 inch long; the 

 longer leaves on the under side pseudo-distichous in three four ranks, 

 the shorter ones on the upper side loosely imbricated and pointing- 

 forwards at an angle of about 45 to the axis ; on the fertile branches 

 all more or less upturned. Staminate flowers " about 0'25 inch long 



Fig. 130. Foliage of Abies Veitchii. 



raised on a stipes of equal length emerging from a scaly bud ; anthers 

 stalked, connective developed into a saddle-shaped flap from the back 

 of which projects a spur-like process.* Cones sub-cylindric, obtuse, 

 2'25 2'5 inches long and 0*75 1 inch in diameter, dark violet-blue 

 changing to brown when mature ; scales closely imbricated, semilunate, 

 broader than long and attached to the axis by a short cuneate claw; 

 bracts as long as, or a little longer than the scales, wedge-shaped at 

 the base, dilated above into a subquadrate blade truncate at the apex, 

 and with a small mucro that sometimes projects beyond the scale and 

 is bent downwards. 



* Masters in Gardeners' Chronicle, XIII. (1880), p. 275. 



