The Firs 



The trees are gigantic in the Sierras; scarcely of more than medium 

 height and girth among the Rockies. The leaves are unusually 

 long for a fir tree, on lower limbs often 2 to 3 inches. The flowers 

 are conspicuous, the staminate rich red, the pistillate ornamented 

 with backward-turning, fmger-lobed bracts. The cones are stout, 

 various in colours, with broad, short scales that quite cover the 

 bracts. The seed wings are rose coloured and lustrous. 



The tree is often planted in Europe; it is the most vigorous 

 native fir tree met in cultivation on the Atlantic side of this con- 

 tinent. The best trees in Eastern nurseries come from seeds col- 

 lected in the Rocky Mountains. 



Another Silver Fir (A.venusta, K. Koch.) has leaves almost 

 willow-like in form, so broad are the flat, pointed blades. They 

 are i to 2^ inches long, yellow-green with silvery linings, especially 

 bright on the newest shoots. The spray is flat by reason of the 

 2-ranked arrangement of the leaves, which stand out at right 

 angles to the twig. The tree habit is peculiar. A slender trunk 

 100 to 150 feet high bears a broad pyramid of pendulous limbs, 

 which is surmounted by a narrow spire for the last 20 feet of the 

 tree's height. The cones are 3 to 4 inches long, and striking in 

 ornamentation. The long, stiff whip of a pale yellowish brown 

 bract extends an inch or two beyond each purple scale. 



This fir is confined to elevated canon sides in the mountains 

 of Monterey County, California, and has no commercial signifi- 

 cance. Seeds sent to Europe produce handsome ornamental trees 

 in North Italy and in warmer sections of England. 



Red Fir (Abies nobilis, Lindl.) — A broad, round-headed 

 tree i 50 to 250 feet high, with trunk 6 to 8 feet through; branches 

 stiff; twigs red velvety. Bark i to 2 inches thick, irregularly 

 furrowed, red-brown. Wood hard, pale brown, streaked with 

 red, light, strong, moderately close in texture; sap wood darker. 

 Buds small, blunt, reddish. Leaves blue-green, often glaucous 

 when young, flat, grooved above, crowded to upper side of twigs, 

 and curved backward, i to i^ inches long, on fertile shoots, 

 4-angled, sharp. Flowers: staminate reddish purple; pistillate 

 scattered on upper limbs, bracts ornate with recurved tips. Fruit 

 oblong, thick, blunt at apex and base, 4 to 5 inches long, purplish 

 or brown, pubescent; scales covered with thin toothed bracts 

 which end in recurving, pencil-like projections. Preferred habited, 

 mountain slopes at 2,500 to 5,000 feet elevation. Distribution, 



83 



