ENGELMANN — A SYNOPSIS OF THE AMERICAN FIRS. 597 



2. A. BALSAMEA (Pittus, Lin. sp. pi. 1421, 1753; Pari. 1. c. 423), Mar- 

 shall Arb. Am. 102, Link, etc. A. halsamifera^ Michx. Fl. 2, 207, in part. 

 — The northeastern "Balsam" extends from Canada and the northeastern 

 States along the mountains to Virginia, and along the Great Lakes to and 

 bevond the Mississippi. It is a larger tree than the last, often 70 feet high, 

 i4 feet in diameter, and up to 150 years old; bark smooth and reddish-gray 

 when young, brown and much cracked in old trees. Its slenderer cones 

 with enclosed bracts (only their points sometimes protruding), and espe- 

 cially the leaves with scarcely any hypoderm cells above and very few on 

 edges and keel (fewer than in any other of our species and sometimes none) 

 and with narrower bands of stomata below (of 4-S, usually about 6 series), 

 re.ndily distinguit-hes it. A. Hudsonia of the gardens, often considered as 

 a form of Fraseri. is a sterile dwarf form of balsamea, found also on the 

 White Mountains of New Hampshire above the timber line. 



3. A. SL'BALPiXA, Engelm. in Am. Naturalist, 1876, p. 554: A. last'o- 

 carpa, Hook Fl. B. A. 2, 163. .' A. bifolia, Murr. Proc. R. Hort. Soc. 3, 318. 

 A. amabilii. Pari. 1. c. 426, in part. — Closely allied to the last species, 

 the western representative of which it must be considered to be ; it extends 

 from the higher mountains of Colorado and the adjoining parts of Utah 

 northward to Wyoming and Montana, where it is the only species, and 

 westward to the mountains of Oregon and into British Columbia (Fraser's 

 River) and southward probably to Mount Shasta, always scattered in the 

 subalpine forests, and, at least in Colorado, coming up almost to the tim 

 ber line, but never alone constituting forests. It is a larger tree than 

 balsamea, often over 2 feet in diameter and 60-100 feet high, with thin, 

 pale whitish, smooth bark, which only in very old trees becomes cracked 

 and ashj-gray ; timber so poor and soft that in some parts of the Rocky 

 Mountains it is called pumpkin pine. Leaves like to those of balsamea, 

 notched on sterile and pointed on fertile branches; hjpoderm considera- 

 ble, though interrupted on upper surface, crowded on edges and keel. 

 Cones retuse, brown-purple, 2-3^ inches long, i-i J inches in diameter, the 

 smaller ones near the timber line. Scales rounded or almost square, often 

 almost as high as broad, similar in their proportions to those oi balsamea, 

 but larger; bracts short, emarginate, mucronate; seeds, including the 

 wing, over i inch long, the latter nearly twice as long as it is wide. 



Van FALLAX has the resin ducts of this species, but the foliage almost 

 oi concolor ; leaves sometimes li or even i| inches long, mostly obtuse, 

 and covered with stomata above, glaucous when young. — Dr. Newberry's 

 specimen in the Herb. Agricult. Dep. Washington, collected on the higher 

 tops of the Cascades, south of the Columbia River, and described* by him 

 as A. amabilis in Pac. R. Rep. 6, bot. 51, belongs here ; the loose scales (12 



* His description of the foliage, however, seems to refer to what I call btlow A.grandis 

 var. deusi/olia. Dr. N. may have mixed both forms, an unfortunate mishap which is by no 

 means rare in such collections, mostly made in haste and often under unfavorable circum- 

 stances. 



