ABIES NOBILIS. 101 



landscape trees, and will probably be found not unworthy of a 

 place among the more select ornamental trees for the lawn. Young 

 imported plants growing in our Nursery, at Coombe Wood, show 

 characters perfectly distinct from every other Fir in cultivation; 

 and the hardiness of the species has been assured by the young 

 plants having withstood the severe winter of 1879—80 uninjured. 



Abies nobilis is one of the grandest of the Silver Firs. When 

 standing alone, towering to a height of from 200 to 300 feet, 

 with a trunk perfectly erect, and furnished with branches from 

 bottom to top, it presents an aspect so striking, that its discoverer, 

 David Douglas, who spent three weeks in a forest composed of 

 it, "day by day could not cease to admire it." Its outline is 

 regular without being formal; it is dense with branchlets and 

 foliage without being sombre, and dark without being gloomy. 

 The branches are regularly whorled and spreading, the lower ones 

 decumbent by the weight of their appendages. The foliage is 

 a deep glaucous green, but when young of a delicate pea green, 

 that affords a striking contrast to the deeper colour of the 

 mature leaves. The leaves are very numerous, crowded above, 

 two-rowed below, of different lengths, the longest about an inch 

 and a quarter in length, rigid, curved upwards, obtuse at the apex, 

 with a shallow sunk line along the middle of the upper surface, 

 and with two glaucous bands beneath. The cones, which are 

 remarkably handsome (See engraving), are cylindrical, obtuse both 

 at base and apex, about 6 inches long, and from 2 to 2J inches 

 in diameter; they are well distinguished by the projecting bracts 

 which are bent backwards, and have jagged edges with a rather 

 broad point or tail in the middle. 



Habitat. — Principally in the neighbourhood of the Columbia Biver 

 in Oregon, and southwards as far as the Shasta Mountains in 

 California. 



Introduced in 1831 by the Horticultural Society of London, 

 through their collector, David Douglas. 



Abies nobilis is universally allowed to be one of the greatest of 

 Douglas' discoveries and introductions. Besides its noble aspect, and 

 the distinct colour of its foliage, it possesses qualities that render it 

 especially valuable in ornamental planting, for which alone it should 

 be employed in Britain) although its timber is useful in its native 



