Abies. CONIFERS. 131 



30 metres in height; the most generally distributed and valuable timber 

 tree of the Pacific region, growing from the sea-level to an elevation in 

 Colorado of nearly 10,000 feet; often forming extensive forests, almost 

 to the exclusion of other species, and reaching in western Oregon and 

 Washington Territory its greatest development and value. A form with 

 larger cones and narrower acutish leaves (var. macrocarpa, Engelm.) occurs 

 in the San Bernardino and Cuyamaca Mountains of southern California, 

 — a small tree with darker-colored, lighter, and less valuable wood. 



Wood hard, strong, varying greatly with age and conditions of growth 

 in density, quality, and amount of sap ; difficult to work, durable ; bands of 

 small summer cells broad, occupying fully one half the width of the annual 

 growth, dark-colored, conspicuous, soon becoming flinty and difficult to 

 cut ; medullary rays numerous, obscure ; color varying from light red to 

 yellow, the sap-wood nearly white ; largely manufactured into lumber and 

 used for all kinds of construction, railway-ties, piles, fuel, etc. Two va- 

 rieties, red and yellow fir, distinguished by lumbermen, are dependent 

 probably upon the age of the tree ; the former coarse-grained, darker- 

 colored, and considered less valuable than yellow fir. 



The bark has proved valuable in tanning leather. 



392. Abies Fraseri, Lindl. 

 Balsam. Site Balsam. 



High Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. 



A tree 18 to 24 metres in height, with a trunk sometimes 0.60 metre 

 in diameter ; moist slopes between 5,000 and 6,500 feet elevation, often 

 forming considerable forests ; very local. 



Wood very light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, compact ; bands of 

 small summer cells rather broad, light-colored, not conspicuous ; medul- 

 lary rays numerous, thin ; color light brown, the sap-wood lighter, nearly 

 white. 



393. Abies balsamea, Mill. 

 Balsam Fir. Balm-of- Gilead Fir. 



Northern Newfoundland and Labrador to the southern shores of Hud- 

 son Bay ; northwest to the Great Bear Lake and the eastern base of the 

 Rocky Mountains ; south through the Northern States to Pennsylvania, 

 central Michigan and Minnesota, and along the Alleghany mountains to 

 the high peaks of Virginia. 



A tree 21 to 27 metres in height, with a trunk mrely exceeding 0.60 

 metre in diameter, or at high elevations reduced to a low, prostrate shrub 

 {A. Hudsonica, Hort.) ; damp woods and mountain swamps. 



Wood very light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, compact, not durable ; 

 bands of small summer cells not broad, resinous, conspicuous ; medullary 

 rays numerous, obscure ; color light brown, .often streaked with yellow, 

 the sap-wood lighter. 



