BA.PINI, THE SILVER FIRS. 



81 



Section II. — Sapini. The Silver Fh's. 



The Silver Firs are cultivated in Great Britain almost exclusively 

 for ornamental purposes, for which few trees, even among the 

 Coniferse, are more suitable or more admired. Their general 

 aspect is formal and symmetrical, owing to their strict conical 

 habit and the horizontal direction of their branches, which, with 

 all their appendages, are rigid, more or less robust, and rarely 

 assume the pendulous or sub-pendulous growth common among the 

 Spruce and Hemlock Firs. They are further distinguished :— 



By their leaves, which are linear, 

 or linear lanceolate, flattened, sessile, 

 or with very short twisted foot stalks, 

 grooved above and keeled below, with 

 a silvery glaucous line on each side 

 of the mid-nerve ; they are frequently 

 distichous, or sub-distichous, that is to 

 say, two-rowed in direction, and point- 

 ing laterally, rarely scattered ; also : — 



By their cones, which are, in most 

 of the species, more nearly cylindrical 

 in form than those of any other 

 family of the Fir and Pine tribe, and 

 which grow erect on the branchlets; 

 scales much broader than in the 



Spruces, deciduous, falling off as soon 

 , h ... as the seed is ripe, leaving the axis 



F.g, 11, — Monstrous cone of Abies r J o 



Teitchii, with bracts transformed into .-i i .„ * 



foliage leaves, and with the axis pro- on W1B Liee. 

 longed into a braochlet with ordinary 

 leaves. Natural size. 



* In all the Firs the scales of the cones have on their under side, an appendage called 

 a bract, which varies considerably in size and form, being in some species quite minute 

 and even rudimentary, while in others it is conspicuously developed. In the Spruce and 

 Hemlock Firs, the bract is shorter than the scale and is enclosed by it. In the Silver 

 Firs, some species have the bract longer, and others shorter than the scale, while there 

 are others, as Abies magnified, which have the scale and bract of the same length. These 

 bracts are now known to be metamorphosed leaves. Three abnormal or monstrous cones 

 of A. VeUchii were recently gathered by Mr. Maries in Japan, in which the bracts 

 -were distinctly transformed into more or less perfect foliage leaves. Our illustration 

 shows one of these. 



