PINACE.E 57 



becoming near the ground on old trees l^'-i^V thick, and irregularly divided into compara- 

 tively small plates covered with small closely appressed reddish brown or reddish grayscales. 

 Wood light, hard, not strong, close-grained, pale brown, with nearly white sap wood; in 

 Washington occasionally manufactured into lumber used in the interior finish of buildings. 



Fig. 57 



Distribution. High mountain slopes and benches from southeastern Alaska (Boca de 

 Quadra Inlet and Sandfly Bay), to Vancouver Island and southward along the coast ranges 

 to Saddle Mountain near Astoria, Oregon, and on the Cascade Mountains to the slopes 

 of Old Bailey Mountain, Oregon, ranging from the sea level at the north to elevations of 

 from 3000-6000 southward; attaining its largest size on the Olympic Mountains of Wash- 

 ington, where it is the most common Fir-tree. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states and in western 

 Europe, but without developing the beauty which distinguishes this species in its native 

 forests. 



7. Abies nobilis Lindl. Red Fir. 



Leaves marked on the upper surface with a deep sharply defined groove, rounded and 

 obscurely ribbed on the lower surface, stomatiferous above and below, dark or light blue- 

 green, often very glaucous during their first season, crowded in several rows, those on the 

 lower side of the branch two-ranked by the twisting of their bases, the others crowded, 

 strongly incurved, with the points erect or pointing away from the end of the branch, 

 on young plants and on the lower sterile branches of old trees flat, rounded, usually slightly 

 notched at apex, !'-!' long, about ^V wide, on fertile branches much thickened and 

 almost equally 4-sided, acuminate, with long rigid callous tips, '-f ' long, on leading shoots 

 flat, gradually narrowed from the base, acuminate, with long rigid points, about 1' long. 

 Flowers: male reddish purple; female often scattered over the upper part of the tree, with 

 broad rounded scales much shorter than their nearly orbicular bracts erose on the margins 

 and contracted above into slender elongated strongly reflexed tips. Fruit oblong-cylindric, 

 slightly narrowed but full and rounded at apex, 4 '-5' long, purple or olive-brown, pu- 

 bescent, with scales about one third wider than long, gradually narrowed from the rounded 

 apex to the base, or full at the sides, rounded and denticulate above the middle and sharply 

 contracted and wedge-shaped below, nearly or entirely covered by their strongly reflexed 

 pale green spatulate bracts full and rounded above, fimbriate on the margins, with broad 

 midribs produced into short broad flattened points; seeds \' long, pale reddish browrt, 

 about as long as their wings, gradually narrowed from below to the nearly truncate 

 slightly rounded apex. 



A tree, in old age with a comparatively broad somewhat rounded head, usually 150- 

 200 and occasionally 250 high, with a trunk 6-8 in diameter, short rigid branches, short 

 stout remote lateral branches standing out at right angles, and slender reddish brown branch- 



