SILVER FIRS. 223 



toothed points. Branches, in whorls, horizontal, and spreading. 

 Branchlets opposite in two rows. Cones, erect, soKtary, four 

 inches and a half long, and three inches and a half broad, 

 cylindrical, or elongated, flat at the ends, deep purple, smooth 

 on the surface, and growing on the upper surface of the top 

 branches. Scales deciduous, trapeziform, stiff and leathery, 

 with the upper margins entire and wedge-shaped at the base. 

 Seeds, soft, angular, full of turpentine, and ripe in October. 

 Wings long and ample. 



A noble tree, growing from 80 to 100 feet high^ with flat, 

 horizontal branches, in regular distant whorls, found abundantly 

 in Bhotan, from 11,000 to 12,000 feet of elevation. In Kamaon 

 it is found at from 7500 to 9000 feet of elevation, where 

 it clothes the sources of the " KosLUa" in a forest of unusual 

 gloom and thickness. It also grows on the easternmost range of 

 the Himalayas, where it is called " Rayha," also on the Choor 

 and Kedarkanta Mountains, at elevations of from 8500 to 

 12,000 feet, and on all other ranges of similar heights, where 

 the trunks attain a great girth and height, — some of the trees 

 on the Choor Mountains measuring twenty feet round at five 

 feet from the ground, and upwards of 150 feet high, with the 

 stem densely clothed with short, scrubby boughs, bearing little 

 proportion in length to the height of the tree, and generally 

 ending in a mass of flat, declining branches. 



The Indian term, " Piudrow," according to Major Madden, 

 refers to its very peculiar mode of growth, the tree being taU 

 and cylindrical, or slightly tapering, like the Lombardy Poplar ; 

 but, according to Dr. Wilson, it is derived from the Sanscrit 

 words, " Pind," incense, and " Koo" or "Row," to weep, from the 

 numerous resinous tears found on the cones and other parts of 

 the tree. It is also called " Kala-rai^' (Black Fir) by the people 

 along the snowy mountains, who also apply the term " Kala- 

 bun" (Black Forest) to the woods where it alone grows ; from 

 the dark green of the leaves on the upper surface, giving the 

 trees a sombre yew-Hke appearance at a distance; and which 

 causes the mountaineers constantly to confound it with the 



