FRASER FIR 



(Abies Fraseri) 



THE people who are acquainted with this interesting and somewhat 

 rare tree have seen to it that it does not want for names. Some of 

 these names are both definitive and descriptive, while others are neither. 

 Tennessee, North Carolina, and West Virginia furnish the names. With- 

 in the tree's range in Tennessee and North Carolina it is often known 

 as balsam without any qualifying word, and that is quite sufficient, for 

 no other fir or balsam grows within its range. In the same region it is 

 called balsam fir. That is the common name of its northern relative, 

 but there is little likelihood of confusing the two species, for their ranges 

 do not overlap much, if they touch at all, which they probably do not. 

 In Tennessee the name is reversed and instead of balsam fir it is fir 

 balsam. It is likewise known as double fir balsam, but why "double" is 

 added to the name is not clear. Similar mystery attaches to the name 

 "single spruce," which is applied to the balsam fir in the interior of 

 British America. The southern Appalachian tree is called she balsam 

 and she balsam fir. These names have no scientific basis, and they 

 appear to have originated in a desire to distinguish this tree from the red 

 spruce with which it is associated. The spruce is called "he balsam." 

 Artificial names like these are not necessary to distinguish red spruce 

 from Eraser fir, as very slight acquaintance should enable anybody to 

 tell one from the other at sight, and to see clearly that they are not of the 

 same species. Mountain balsam, a North Carolina name for this fir, is 

 well taken, for it is distinctly a mountain species. The name healing 

 balsam is given in acknowledgment of the supposed medicinal properties 

 of the resin which collects in blisters or pockets under the bark of young 

 trees and near the tops of old. In West Virginia, where this tree reaches 

 the northern limits of its habitat, it is called blister pine, on account of 

 the resin pockets. In the same region it is called stackpole pine, 

 because farmers who mow mountain meadows use straight, very light 

 poles cut from this fir round which to build haystacks. 



This tree is decidedly an inhabitant of the high, exposed localities, 

 being found entirely in the upper elevations of the southern Appa- 

 lachian mountains, either forming extensive pure stands or growing 

 in the company of red spruce (P'tea rubens), with a scattering of various 

 stunted hardwoods, as birch, mountain ash, cherry and usually with an 

 undergrowth of rhododendron. 



Eraser fir's range extends from the high mountains of North 

 Carolina, where it grows 6,000 feet above sea level, northward into 



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