16 Illustrations of Conifers. 



ABIES LOWIANA (Murray). CALIFORNIAN FIR. 



Gardeners' Chronicle, Vol. XIII. p. 8 (1880) with fig. 



Veitch's Man. Conif. ed. 2, p. 502 (1900). 



Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. IV. p. 779 (1909). 



A TREE which attains in California a height of 200 to 250 feet with 

 a trunk sometimes 18 feet in girth. Bark very thick on old trunks, 

 dividing into scaly ridges ; in cultivated trees resembling A. concolor. 



Branchlets yellowish - green, minutely pubescent. Buds ovoid, 

 smaller than in A. concolor, resinous. 



Leaves on lateral branches, pectinate, horizontal or curving up- 

 wards ; those on the upper side of the shoot nearly as long as the 

 lower, linear, flattened, rounded and slightly notched at the apex, up to 

 2 inches long ; upper surface grooved, with lines of stomata in the 

 furrow ; lower surface with two white bands of stomata. 



Cones resembling those of A. concolor, but in cultivated specimens 

 they are chestnut-brown and not purple as is sometimes the case in 

 A. concolor. 



This fir is often regarded as a geographical form of Abies concolor, 

 but it keeps perfectly distinct in cultivation as explained in the 

 account of the latter species. Its native habitats are the Siskiyou 

 Mountains in southern Oregon, and on Mount Shasta and the Sierra 

 Nevada ranges in California. In the latter locality it forms forests 

 with Abies magnified, and extends from 4,000 to 9,000 feet altitude. 



Abies Lowiana was introduced into cultivation in 1851 by Lobb, 

 and has proved itself to be one of our hardiest conifers, growing well 

 on a variety of *soils. 



The Bayfordbury specimen planted in 1849 has now attained a 

 height of 69 feet by 6 feet 9 inches in girth. The cone photographed 

 was produced by the Bayfordbury tree in 1907, and seedlings have 

 been raised from that source. 



