SPRUCE FIRS. 15 



bluntly egg-shaped, dark brown, and mostly produced near the 

 points of the shoots. Cones, solitary, subsessile, erect, oblong- 

 cylindrical, obtuse at the apex, 2i inches long and 1 J wide. 

 Scales wedge-shaped at the base, rounded on the upper 

 margin, quite entire on the edges, smooth on the bark, concave 

 beneath, loosely imbricated, and nearly three-fourths of an inch 

 long. 



A tall tree, resembling the Common Spruce, and in favourable 

 situations growing 100 feet high, but diminishing in stature and 

 foliage according to situation, soil, and elevation, and, like all 

 other coniferous trees from Northern regions, subject to great 

 variation in appearance. 



It is found on the Altai mountains and in Siberia, at eleva- 

 tions of from 4000 to 5000 feet. 



It is called " Kara-Schersae" by the Tartars on account of 

 its warted branches and close appearance, and is a very different 

 kind from the Abies Orientalis, which so frequently is substi- 

 tuted for it in the nurseries. It more resembles the Common 

 Spruce, but with very much smaller egg-shaped cones, which 

 are quite obtuse at the ends, and seldom more than 2h inches 

 long, by 1^ wide. 



No. 9. Abies orientalis, Poiret, the Eastern Spruce. 

 Syn. Pinus orientalis, Linnceus. 

 Picea orientalis, Link. 

 Wittmanniana, Fischer. 

 Abies Wittmanniana, Hartwess. 



Leaves solitary, very dense, partially four-sided, covering the 

 branches on all sides, deep green on both sides, narrow, but not 

 sharp-pointed, half an inch long, and rather stout. Branches 

 straight, slender, and with the leaves all one length along the 

 branchlets. Cones pendulous when full grown, cylindrical, 

 tapering regularly from near the base to the point, which is 

 quite small, 2-|- to 3 inches long, and three-quarters of an inch 

 broad at the widest part, which is towards the base. Scales 

 rounded, thin, loosely imbricated, broad near the base but with 



