PINACE.E 53 



A tree, 50-60 high, with a trunk usually 12'-18', or rarely 30' in diameter, spreading 

 branches forming a handsome symmetrical slender pyramid, the lower branches soon dying 

 from trees crowded in the forest, and slender branchlets pale yellow-green and coated with 

 fine pubescence at first, becoming light gray tinged with red, and often when four or five 

 years old with purple. Winter-buds nearly globose, '-' in diameter, with lustrous dark 

 orange-green scales. Bark on old trees often \' thick, rich brown, much broken on the 

 surface into small plates covered with scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, 

 perishable, pale brown streaked with yellow, with thick lighter colored sap wood; occasion- 

 ally made into lumber principally used for packing-cases. From the bark of this tree oil 

 of fir used in the arts and in medicine is obtained. 



Distribution. From the interior of the Labrador peninsula westward to the shores of 

 Lesser Slave Lake, southward through Newfoundland, the maritime provinces of Canada, 

 Quebec and Ontario, northern New England, northern New York, northern Michigan 

 to the shores of Saginaw Bay, and northern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, and 

 along the Appalachian Mountains from western Massachusetts and the Catskills of 

 New York to the high mountains of southwestern Virginia; common and often forming 

 a considerable part of the forest on low swampy ground; on well-drained hillsides some- 

 times singly in forests of spruce or forming small almost impenetrable thickets; in northern 

 Wisconsin and vicinity occurs a form with longer and more crowded leaves and larger 

 cones (var. macrocarpa Kent) ; near the timber-line on the mountains of New England and 

 New York reduced to a low almost prostrate shrub. 



Sometimes planted in the northern states in the neighborhood of farmhouses, but usually 

 short-lived and of little value as an ornamental tree in cultivation; formerly but now 

 rarely cultivated in European plantations; a dwarf form (var. hudsonica Englm.) growing 

 only a few inches high and spreading into broad nests is often cultivated. 



3. Abies lasiocarpa Nutt. Balsam Fir.' 



Leaves marked on the upper surface but generally only above the middle with 4 or 5 

 rows of stomata on each side of the conspicuous midrib and on the lower surface by 2 

 broad bands each of 7 or 8 rows, crowded, nearly erect by the twist at their base, on lower 

 branches I'-lf long, about iV wide, and rounded and occasionally emarginate at apex, 

 on upper branches somewhat thickened, usually acute, generally not more than \' long, 

 on leading shoots flattened, closely appressed, with long slender rigid points. Flowers: 

 male dark indigo-blue, turning violet when nearly ready to open; female with dark violet- 

 purple obovate scales much shorter than tjieir strongly reflexed bracts contracted into 

 slender tips. Fruit oblong-cylindric, rounded, truncate or depressed at the narrowed 

 apex, dark purple, puberulous, 2|'-4' long, with scales gradually narrowed from the broad 

 rounded or nearly truncate apex to the base, usually longer than broad, about three times 

 as long as their oblong-obovate red-brown bracts laciniately cut on the margins, rounded, 

 emarginate and abruptly contracted at the apex into long slender tips; seeds \' long, with 

 dark lustrous wings covering nearly the entire surface of the scales. 



A tree, usually 80-100, occasionally 175, or southward rarely more than 50 high, 

 with a trunk 2-5 in diameter, short crowded tough branches, usually slightly pendulous 

 near the base of the tree, generally clothing the trunks of the oldest trees nearly to their 

 base and forming dense spire-like slender heads, and comparatively stout branchlets coated 

 for three or four years with fine rufous pubescence, or rarely glabrous before the end of their 

 first season, pale orange-brown, ultimately gray or silvery white. Winter-buds sub- 

 globose, \'-\' thick, covered with light orange-brown scales. Bark becoming on old 

 trees \'-\\' thick, divided by shallow fissures and roughened by thick closely appressed 

 cinnamon-red scales; on the San Francisco Mountains, Arizona, thicker and spongy (var. 

 arizonica Lem.). Wood light, soft, not strong, pale brown or nearly white, with light- 

 colored sapwood; little used except for fuel. 



Distribution. High mountain slopes and summits from about latitude 61 in Alaska, 

 southward along the coast ranges to the Olympic Mountains of Washington, over all the 



