Illustrations of Conifers. 29 



ABIES WEBBIANA (Lindley). HIMALAYAN FIR. 



Gardeners' Chronicle, Vol. XXII. p. 467 (1884). 



Veitch's Man. Conif. ed. 2, p. 548 (1900). 



Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. IV. p. 760 (1909). 



A TREE attaining a height of 150 feet and a girth of 35 feet. Branches 

 thick, horizontal and spreading, forming a more or less flattened crown. 

 Bark scaling off in young trees, becoming rough and fissured in old 

 trunks. 



Branchlets reddish-brown, deeply grooved, with minute hairs in 

 the grooves. Buds large, globose and resinous. Leaves on lateral 

 branches pectinately arranged in two lateral sets, each of several 

 apparent ranks ; the lower ranks on each side extending outwards in 

 the horizontal plane ; the upper ranks with leaves becoming gradually 

 shorter, directed outwards and upwards, forming a V-shaped depression 

 with the branchlet visible between them. 



Leaves 1 - 2^ inches long, linear, flattened, rounded and bifid at 

 the apex, upper surface dark green and grooved, lower surface with 

 two well defined white lines of stomata. 



Cones shortly stalked, cylindrical, in cultivation often 6-8 inches 

 long by 2 - 3 inches in diameter, violet or plum-coloured when growing, 

 becoming brown when mature ; scales fan-shaped, suddenly contracted 

 to a short claw with entire margins ; bracts spathulate, mucronate, 

 nearly as long as the scale. Seed with a wing one and a half times 

 its length. 



Abies Webbiana occurs in the inner Himalayas from Afghanistan 

 to Bhotan at elevations of 10,000 to 14,000 feet. It was discovered 

 by Captain W. S. Webb, an officer in the service of the East India 

 Company, and introduced into English gardens in 1822 by Dr. Wallich 

 of Calcutta. It does not succeed in England on account of its liability 

 to be cut by spring frosts. 



This tree was first planted at Bayfordbury in 1841 but was killed 

 in 1854. A young specimen was added in 1906, and many seedlings 

 raised from a cone grown at Castle Kennedy from which the photo- 

 graph was taken. 



