8o 



The Firs 



WTiite fir, and Silver fir. It attains its greatest dimensions in the rich bottom 

 lands of the valleys of the northwest coast in British Columbia, Washington, and 

 Oregon, and extends southward into California and eastward into Idaho and 

 Montana, where it reaches an altitude of 2100 meters. 



The lower branches are drooping. The bark of old trees is often 5 cm. thick, 

 fissured into low ridges, and covered with thick dark brown scales ; that of younger 

 trees is much thinner, quite smooth except for the resin "bhsters," and pale gray- 

 ish. The twigs are rather slender, covered with short hairs, yellowish green chang- 

 ing to red-brown with age. The winter buds are globose, 7 mm. long, and 

 resinous. The flat linear leaves are shining dark green and distinctly grooved on 



the upper side, silvery 

 white beneath, from 2.5 

 to 5 cm. long, deeply 

 notched and appearing 

 2-ranked on the sterile 

 branchlets, shorter, 

 scarcely notched or 

 bluntly pointed, more or 

 less erect and crowded on 

 the fruiting branchlets. 

 The staminate flowers 

 are oblong, 2 cm. long, 

 and bright yellow, the 

 pistillate flowers being 

 narrowly cylindric, 2.5 

 to 3 cm. long, and pale 

 yellow to green. The 

 cyhndric cones are 5 to 

 10 cm. long, rounded and 

 often sunken at the top, 

 bright green and slightly 

 hair}^; the scales are 

 broadly fan-shaped, 

 about 3 cm. wide and 

 not quite as long, about twice the length of the bracts, which have an obcordate, 

 irregularly toothed and short-pointed apex. The pale brown seeds are about 7 

 mm. long, half the length of the broad shining wing. 



The wood is soft, coarse-grained, not durable; its specific gravity is about 

 0.35. In Oregon and Washington it is used in carpentry, cooperage, and for paper 

 pulp. 



Its growth is said to be the most rapid of the American coniferous trees when 

 in the proper soil and supply of moisture, which, however, is hard to secure in 

 America in any other than its native regions. 



Fig. 61. Great Silver Fir. 



