786 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



ABIES NOBILIS, Noble Fir 



Abies nobilis, Lindley, Penny Cycl. i. 30 (1833); Masters, Gard. Chron. xxiv. 652, f. 146 (1885), 

 andy^«w. Linn. Soc. {Bot.) xxii. 188 (excl. habitat Mt. Shasta, and var. magnified) (1886); 

 Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 133, t. 617 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 65 (1905); Kent, 

 Veitch's Man. Coniferm, 521 (1900). 



Pinus nobilis, Douglas, in Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 147 (1836). 



Picea nobilis, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2342 (1838). 



A tree, attaining in America occasionally 250 feet in height with a girth up to 24 

 feet, but more usually 1 50 to 200 feet high. Bark smooth on young trees, becoming on 

 old trunks reddish-brown and deeply divided by broad flat ridges, irregularly broken 

 by cross fissures and covered with thick closely appressed scales. 



Buds concealed by the leaves at the tips of the branchlets, ovoid-globose ; 

 terminal bud resinous above and surrounded at the base by a ring of lanceolate 

 acuminate or subulately pointed pubescent brown scales ; lateral buds with ovate 

 basal scales. Young shoots smooth, densely covered with minute rusty brown 

 tomentum, which is retained in the second year. 



Leaves on lateral branches pectinate below, extending outwards in the horizontal 

 plane in two lateral sets ; above, the leaves in the middle line, much shorter, com- 

 pletely cover the shoot, from which they arise curving upwards, after being appressed 

 to the branchlet for a short distance near their bases, their tips usually having a 

 slight inclination forwards. Leaves up to about \\ inch long, ^ inch wide, linear, 

 flattened, narrowed at the base, uniform in width elsewhere, rounded and entire at 

 the apex ; upper surface with a continuous median groove and variable as regards the 

 stomata, which are sometimes in two definite bands each of six to eight lines or some- 

 times present as a few irregular lines, or rarely absent ; lower surface with two 

 narrow bands of stomata, each of five to six lines ; resin-canals marginal. 



Leaves on cone-bearing branches all upturned, thickened, and with sharp 

 cartilaginous points, 



Staminate flowers reddish. Pistillate flowers with broad rounded scales, much 

 shorter than the nearly orbicular bracts, which are erose in margin and contracted 

 above into slender elongated reflexed tips. 



Cones cylindrical, but narrowing towards the full and rounded apex ; 4 to 5 

 inches long by 2 inches in diameter on wild trees, 6 to 10 inches long by 3 to 4 inches 

 in diameter on cultivated trees ; pubescent, purplish-brown with green bracts when 

 growing, the bracts becoming bright chestnut brown in the mature fruit. Scales : 

 lamina, i| to i|- inch broad, i inch long, variable in shape ; gradually narrowing to 

 the base with straight lateral margins, or rounded and denticulate on the sides above 

 the middle and contracted below ; claw short, clavate. Bracts exserted and strongly 

 reflexed, covering the greater part of the scale next below ; lamina, broad, full and 

 rounded above, fimbriate in margin, and with a conspicuous midrib prolonged into a 

 mucro about \ inch long ; claw long and cuneate. Seeds pale brown, about \ inch 



