CONIFERS 55 



on both sides, rugose, dark chestnut-brown or nearly black and lustrous above, pale 

 reddish brown below, ' long, $' wide, with a thick brittle outer coat and wings 

 broadest near the middle, about ^' long, nearly -J' wide, and rounded at the apex. 



A tree, usually 40-50 and rarely 80 high, with a trunk 3^ in diameter, 

 remote elongated branches pendulous below, furnished with short stout pendant 



or often erect laterals forming an open broad-based symmetrical pyramidal head, 

 slender branchlets dark reddish brown and pubescent during their first year, be- 

 coming glabrous and dark or light orange-brown and ultimately gray-brown. "Win- 

 ter-buds ovate, acute, usually not more than -|' long, often nearly as broad as 

 long. Bark 3'-6' thick, dark reddish brown, deeply divided into broad rounded 

 ridges covered with thick closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, 

 close-grained, not durable; occasionally manufactured into lumber; largely used for 

 fuel. 



Distribution. Steep rocky mountain slopes in southern California at elevations of 

 3000-5000 above the sea, often forming open groves of considerable extent, from 

 the Santa Inez Mountains in Santa Barbara County to the Cuyamaca Mountains. 



6. ABIES, Link. Fir. 



Tall pyramidal trees, with bark containing numerous resin-vesicles, smooth, pale, 

 and thin on young trees, often thick and deeply furrowed in old age, pale and usually 

 brittle wood, slender horizontal wide-spreading branches in regular remote 4 or 

 5-branched whorls, clothed with twice or thrice forked lateral branches forming flat- 

 topped masses of foliage gradually narrowed from the base to the apex of the branch, 

 the ultimate divisions stout, glabrous, or pubescent, and small globose or oblong win- 

 ter branch-buds usually thickly covered with resin, or in one species large and acute, 

 with thin loosely imbricated scales. Leaves linear, sessile, on young plants and on 

 lower sterile branches flattened and mostly grooved on the upper side, or in one 

 species 4-sided, rounded and usually emarginate at the apex, appearing 2-ranked by 

 a twist near their base or occasionally spreading from all sides of the branch, only 

 rarely stomatiferous above, on upper fertile branches and leading shoots usually 

 crowded, more or less erect, often incurved or falcate, thick, convex on the upper 

 side, or quadrangular in some species and then obtuse, and acute at the apex and 



