HARDY ON KOYA SCOTIAN CONIFERS. 127 



wick, perhaps, afford the finest specimens of this tree. Here I have 

 seen it growing to the height of 60 feet. 



jLTie large, erect, sessile cones of the Balsam Fir are very beau- 

 tiful in the end of May, when they are of a light sea-green colour, 

 whichj changing in June to pale lavender, in August assumes a dark 

 slaty tint. They ripen in the fall, and the scale being easily 

 detached, the seeds are soon scattered by the Autumnal gales* leav- 

 ing the axis bare and persistent on the branch for many years. In 

 June each strobile is surmounted with a large mass of balsam 

 exudation. 



The summer of 1864 was marked as a most fructiferous season 

 amongst all species of conifer ae on the American continent. The 

 casual observer passing along the roads could not help observing the 

 masses of brown cones which everywhere burdened the tops of the 

 pines and spruces, and from which the Indians augured an unusually 

 hard winter, through much the same process of reasoning that the 

 English countryman prophecies a rigorous season from an abundant 

 crop of haws and other autumnal hedge fruits. The hard season 

 did not arrive, but the immense crop of cones killed a large number 

 of trees, especially of the species under consideration. If not actually 

 killed, many instances of the Silver Fir with a dead leading shoot, 

 or with one just recovering its vitality may be constantly seen by 

 any roadside observer. In the former case, a new" leader, elected 

 from the nearest tier of branchlets, is already lifting its head to 

 continue the grov/th of the tree, and the latter instance, in which 

 all the surrounding shoots and foliage have been vitally drained by 

 the exhausting cone-crops, may be supposed to account for the long 

 spaces or intermissions between the lateral branches of firs, at cer- 

 tain intervals up the main stem which are often to be observed. 



The Silver Fir is remarkable for the horizontal regularity of its 

 branches, and the general exact conical formation of the whole tree. 

 An irregularity in the growth of the foliage, similar to that occur- 

 ring in the black spruce, is frequently to be found in the fir. A 

 contorted branch, generally half-way up the stem, terminates in a 

 multitude of interlaced sprays which are, every summer, clothed 

 with very delicate, flaccid, light-green leaves, forming a beehive 



* The cones of other species of Ashes and Pines generally do not ripen until 

 the 2nd year, whilst the expanded strobile remains attached to the tree for long 

 after. 



