SILVER FIRS. 227 



to two inches long, linear, flat, leathery, bidented on the ends, 

 of a dark glossy green above, and furnished with two broad 

 white bands below. Branches in regular whorls, horizontal, 

 and spreading. Branchlets opposite, two rowed, and stout. 

 Buds oval, covered with brown scales, and resinous. Cones 

 solitary, erect, and of a rich purple colour, from six to seven 

 inches long, and about two and a half broad, cylindrical, blunt- 

 ended, full of resinous matter, and growing on the upper surface 

 of the top branches. Scales deciduouSj regularly wedge- 

 shaped, leathery, dilated on the upper part, and quite round on 

 the margins, regularly imbricated, and provided at the base with 

 very short bracts, much shorter than the scales. Seeds soft, 

 oblong, or angular. Wings thin, broad, and somewhat obovate. 



A noble tree, growing from seventy to eighty feet high, with 

 a tabular-formed head when old, found abundantly in the 

 Himalayas, at different elevations. Its lowest limit on the 

 southern face of the Himalayas is 10,000 feet. 



The Indian Silver Fir is the most abundant one in Sikkim, 

 and forms vast forests in Bhotan, at elevations from 11,000 to 

 12,000 feet. 



Dr. Hooker found it in Sikkim measuring thirty feet in 

 girth. It also forms most dense and extensive forests on the 

 north side of the Shatool-Pass, but on the south face it does 

 not flourish. It is called ChUrow in the Northern Hima- 

 layas, 'Oonum,' or Purple-coned Fir, and the 'RaisaUa/ or 

 King Pine, in Upper Kamaon and Nepal. 



This is the Black Fir, found so abundantly by Dr. Griffith on 

 the Bhotan Mountains, at an elevation of from 11,000 to 12,500 

 feet, where it forms a lofty tabular or flat-headed tree, with the 

 foliage of the deepest green on the upper surface, but quite 

 silvery beneath. It is called " Rai-Sulla " (fragrant Fir), and 

 " Gobrea-SuUa " (fragrant or Indigo Fir), by the Gorkhalees, 

 on account of an indigo or purple pigment being extracted 

 from the young cones. On the Ohoor Mountains the inhabitants 

 call it " Kilounta," which is a Sanscrit compound for end of 

 the Pine tree, and denotes the fir-cone, so conspicuous in this 

 Q 2 



