744 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



ABIES CILICICA, Cilician Fir 



Abies cilicica, Carrifere, Conif. 229 (^HS\ and Flore des Serres, xi. 67, t. 1 108 (1856) ^ TcWhatcheflf, 

 Asie Mineure, ii. 494 (i860); Heuz6 in Rev. Hart. 1856, p. 81, f. 14; Kent, Veitchs Man. 

 Conifera, 500 (1900); Hickel, in Bull. Soc. Dend. France, 1908, p. 183. 



Abies selinusia, Carribre, Flore des Serres, xi. 69 (1856). 



Finus cilicica, Kotschy, Oestr. Bot. Wochenbl. iii. 409 (1853). 



Picea cilicica, Gordon, Pin. Suppl. 50 (1862). 



A tree attaining in Asia Minor 100 feet in height and 7 feet in girth. Bark 

 ashy-grey in colour, smooth in young trees, deeply fissured and scaly in old trees. 

 Buds^ small, non-resinous, ovoid, acute at the apex; scales few, keeled, with their 

 tips more or less free and not appressed. Young shoots smooth, greyish-brown, with 

 scattered short erect pubescence; bark fissuring slightly on the second year's 



shoot. 



Leaves on lateral branches usually pectinately arranged, the upper ranks pointing 

 outwards and upwards, thus forming a V-shaped depression above between the two 

 lateral sets ; on vigorous shoots, the median leaves on the upper side are directed 

 forwards and upwards, and cover the branchlet, the V-shaped depression being 

 obliterated. Leaves thin and slender, i to ij inch long, ^ inch wide, linear, 

 flattened, uniform in width except at the tapering base, apex rounded or acute and 

 slightly bifid ; upper surface light green with a continuous median groove and 

 usually without stomata, rarely with two to three short lines in the groove near the 

 apex ; under surface with two narrow greyish bands of stomata, each of six to seven 

 lines; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone-bearing branches, upturned, curved, 

 more rigid and broader than those on barren branches, minutely bifid at the truncate 

 or obtuse apex. 



Cones of wild trees subsessile or on short stout stalks, cylindrical, 

 tapering to an acute apex, 6 to 9 inches long by 2 to 2|- inches in diameter, 

 brownish when ripe. Scales^ larger than in any other species; lamina if inch 

 wide, f inch long, fan-shaped, upper margin thin and entire, lateral margins convex, 

 denticulate, with a sinus on each side ; claw short, obcuneate. Bract with an 

 oblong claw, expanding above into an ovate or quadrangular denticulate lamina, 

 tipped with a short mucro, extending to ^ or ^ the height of the scale. Seed-wing 

 about i^ times as long as the seed ; seed with wing about i^ inch long. In 

 cultivated specimens, scales smaller, \\ inch wide by \ inch long ; bracts with a 

 very short claw and a lamina not reaching more than \ the height of the scale ; seed 

 with wing about i inch long. 



Distribution 



This species is confined to Asia Minor and northern Syria, occurring on the 

 Lebanon and the Antitaurus, and forming, in company with the cedar, great forests 



1 The buds are characteristic ; and, as Hickel points out, distinguish this species from all the others. 

 ^ The peculiar hook-like processes of the scales which occur in some specimens are probably abnormal. 



