Illustrations of Conifers. 13 



ABIES FRASERI (Poiret). 



Gardeners' Chronicle, Vol. VIII. p. 684 (1890) with fig. 



Veitch's Man. Conif. ed. 2, p. 609 (1900). 



Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. IV. p. 806 (1909). 



A FIR attaining in America a height of 70 feet with a trunk 7 feet 

 in girth, and somewhat stiff branches forming a tree with an open 

 pyramidal habit. Bark smooth, thin and blistered in young trees, 

 becoming scaly on older trunks. 



Branchlets grey, with a dense reddish curved or twisted pubes- 

 cence. Buds small, broadly ovoid or globose, resinous. 



Leaves arranged like those of A. balsamea, but shorter, rarely 

 exceeding inch in length, rounded and notched at the apex. Upper 

 surface dark -green, shining; lower surface with two broad white bands 

 of stomata. 



Cones purple, ovoid-cylindrical, about 2 inches long by 1J inch 

 in diameter, like those of A. balsamea, but with the bracts protruding 

 and reflexed at their tip ; seed with wing about inch long. 



This fir has a very local distribution, being found wild only on 

 the Alleghany Mountains in south-western Virginia, North Carolina, 

 and eastern Tennessee, where it forms forests at 4,000 to 6,000 feet 

 elevation. It was discovered by John Fraser, a Scotch traveller and 

 botanist, whose name it commemorates, early in the 19th century. 

 It is a short-lived species, and although introduced as long ago as 

 1811, no trees of considerable size are known in Britain. 



Abies Fraseri planted at Bayfordbury in 1838 was killed by the 

 winter of 1860. Specimens were added in 1906, one of which is now 

 (1909) coning. The photograph represents a branch from a tree which 

 formerly grew near Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Gloucestershire. 



