58 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



appearing early from the lower part of the trunk, and stout branchlets pubescent for 

 three or four years, pale yellow-brown during their first season, becoming dark reddish 

 brown often tinged with purple, and obtuse orange-brown winter-buds. Bark of the 

 trunk \'-^ f thick, and covered with thin closely appressed bright cinnamon-red scales, 

 generally becoming gray on old trees. Wood light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, 

 pale brown, with nearly white sap wood; occasionally manufactured into lumber. 



Distribution. Appalachian Mountains from southwestern Virginia to western 

 North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, often forming forests of considerable extent 

 at elevations between 4000 and 6000 above the sea-level. 



Occasionally planted in the parks and gardens of the northern states and of 

 Europe, but short-lived in cultivation and of little value as an ornamental tree. 



2. Abies balsamea, Mill. Balsam Fir. 



Leaves dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, silvery white on the lower 

 surface, with bands of 4-8 rows of stomata, ' long on cone-bearing branches to iy 



long on the sterile branches of young trees, straight, acute or acuminate, with short 

 or elongated rigid callous tips, spreading at nearly right angles to the branch on 

 young trees and sterile branches, on the upper branches of older trees often broadest 

 above the middle, rounded or obtusely short-pointed at the apex, occasionally 

 emarginate on branches at the top of the tree. Flowers: staminate yellow, more 

 or less deeply tinged with reddish purple; pistillate with nearly orbicular purple 

 scales much shorter than their oblong-obovate serrulate pale yellow-green bracts 

 emarginate with a broad apex abruptly contracted into a long slender recurved tip. 

 Fruit oblong-cylindrical, gradually narrowed to the rounded apex, puberulous, dark 

 rich purple, 2'-4' long, with scales usually longer than broad, generally almost twice 

 as long but rarely not as long as their bracts ; seeds about ' long and rather 

 shorter than their light brown wings. 



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

 ing branches forming a handsome symmetrical open broad-based 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 



