154 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



the tip. It is a lofty tree, growing to eighty or a hundred feet, 

 sometimes more. It is a native of Central Europe, Northern 

 and Western Asia, but has been grown in England for nearly 

 three hundred years. Its timber is reputed to be durable under 

 water ; and from its bark is obtained a resin called Strasburg 

 turpentine, also white pitch. The flowers appear in May, and 

 the cones are ripe eighteen months later. The tree often begins 

 to produce cones at about twenty years of age, but until about 

 its fortieth year these are barren. 



The name Abies is Latin, signifying a fir-tree or a plank. A 

 shipwright or carpenter was abietarius. 



The Norway Spruce -fir (Abies excelsd). 



The Spruce-fir is a handsome tree, often reaching from one 

 hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in height. The leaves 

 are curiously square, sharp-pointed and scattered in their 

 arrangement on the branch. The cylindrical cones hang down 

 from the tip of a shoot, and are six or seven inches long, their 

 scales with a few teeth at the apex. Its seeds are very small. 

 The flowers appear in May, and the cones ripen in about 

 twelve months. It is a native of Norway, Russia, and Northern 

 Europe generally, and was introduced to Britain nearly three 

 hundred and fifty years ago ; but previous to the glacial period 

 it appears to have been indigenous and prosperous here. Its 

 timber (white deal) is very largely used for many purposes. 

 Its resin is known as frankincense, from which is prepared 

 Burgundy pitch ; and from the boiled leaf-buds and shoots is 

 obtained essence of spruce, which is used to flavour an 

 intoxicant known as spruce-beer. 



One of the most ornamental of this group is the Hemlock 

 Spruce (Abies canadensis), a species that was introduced about 

 a hundred and sixty years since. Its home is in all the forest 

 regions of Canada and the United States as far west as Oregon, 



