Handbook of Trees of the jSTortiiern States 



Caxa 



37 



The Fraser Fir is a tree of medium size, 

 usually 30-50 ft. in height, or sometimes 70 

 ft., with trunk l-2i/. ft. in cli.imeter. When 

 sufficiently isolated it develops a distinct 

 pyramidal top with whorls of long horizontal 

 lower branches, those above successively shorter 

 to the pointed apex. The bark of the younger 

 trunks is copiously resin-blistered, that of 

 older trunks becoming covered with thin yel- 

 lowish gray papery scales, quite difl'erent from 

 that of the Balsam Fir. One of the most re- 

 stricted trees of eastern United States in dis- 

 tribution it is found only at altitudes of from 

 4000 to 6000 ft. on the highest peaks of the 

 Allegheny Mountains, clothing their dry sum- 

 mits either with exclusive groves or in com- 

 pany with the Red Spruce (called locally by 

 the mountaineers "He Balsam" in distinction 

 from this the " .Sf/ie Balsam") Mountain Ash, 

 Yellow Birch, etc. This requirement in the 

 Fraser Fir for dry localities is strangely dif- 

 ferent from the love of the Northern Balsam 

 Fir for wet low-lands. 



Its wood is light, a cu. ft. weighing 22.22 

 lbs. and seems to be but little used, perhaps 

 due to inaccessibility though applicable to the 

 uses mentioned of the other species. Its 

 branches are popular for use in making balsam 

 pillows.i 



Leaves flat, %-l in. long:, those of the sterile 

 branches emarginate and those of the fertile acute 

 at apex, dark Ki-ccn and centrally grooved above, 

 silvery whito beneath witli S-12 rows of stomata. 

 Flowers in May : staniinato reddish yelhiw : pis- 

 tillate witli s<'ales much l)roader than hmg and 

 shorter than the exserted pah' yelhiw-ijreen liracts. 

 Cones mature in September, ovoid-oblong, 2-2 1{. in. 

 long, darlf purple with scales wid(>r than long"and 

 with long exserted pale yellow-green refiexed 

 bracts, aristate at apex ; seeds abfiut % in. long 

 with very wide wing oblicpie at apex. 



1. A. W., XII, 300. 



