ABIES, THE MR. 61 



immense areas in plains, in valleys, and on the sides of mountains, 

 often reaching the limits of perpetual snow in the higher ranges, 

 and covering the summits of those of lower elevation. Several of 

 the species are spread over a great extent of country, and are 

 found under many different conditions of altitude, climate, soil, 

 and aspect ; it is not surprising, therefore, that variations from a 

 fixed type should be often met with. Such is actually the case, 

 and many of the varieties, when first discovered, have been 

 named as new species. This has been one fruitful cause of the 

 numerous synonyms that have found their way into the nomenclature 

 of Coniferous trees. Besides the varieties that can be referred to 

 local influences, as those above-named, others are produced by 

 another cause already alluded to, the polymorphous tendency which 

 is manifested, more or less, in every tribe of the Coniferse,* and 

 which occurs most frequently in kinds brought under cultivation. 

 It is much less prevalent among the Abietineas than in the other 

 tribes ; it is, perhaps, most common in some of the Araucarias, but 

 among the Firs are found some remarkable instances, as Abies excelsa 

 inverta and A. pectinate/, joendula. It is much more rarely observed 

 among the true Pines, and there are but few very striking departures 

 from the usual type among the Cedars and Larches. 



I.— ABIES (Toumefort) The Fie. 



The most obvious characteristics of the Firs are — The habit is 

 regularly pyramidal or conical; the branches are produced in 

 whorls; they are frondose or flat, and furnished with a profusion 

 of foliage, which is evergreen; the leaves arise singly from the 

 branchlets, and not in bundles of twos, threes, or fives, as in the 

 Pines, nor fasciculated as in the Larch and Cedar; the catkins are 

 produced along the branchlets singly, or in twos and threes, and 

 not in clusters as in many of the Pines; the cones are cylindrical 

 or but slightly tapering, obtusely pointed both at the base and 

 apex, having brown scales either deciduous or persistent, coriaceous 

 in texture, not umbonate, and which never become consolidated 

 into the hard ligneous persistent fruit like the cones of many of 

 the Pines, The cones attain maturity in one season. 



* See page 28. 



