86 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS 
whitened stomatiferous side, which was lying wrong 
side up after the fall, had, from all evidences, firmly 
refused to face exposure to the heavens. The sun 
had dominated the situation and made the leaves 
to grow according to his lights, and that was in upside- 
down arrangement. A weird picture of the rules 
and laws of topsy-turvydom. : 
GROUP III 
A. NORDMANNIANA, AMABILIS, RELIGIOSA, MARIESI, 
VEITCHII, SACHALINENSIS, SIBIRICA 
Oh! forest deep and gloomy, 
Oh! woodland, vale, and hill, 
From Mendelssohn's Open-Aty Muste, 
A. NoRDMANNIANIA.—Of all the trees in this group, 
first and foremost upon terms of more intimate 
familiarity, stands out this dark and grim Caucasian 
Silver Fir. 
Their leaves are generally written down as dark 
green and glossy. Glossy they are, as the best of 
polished patent leather, but when you come to 
compare at close quarters there are many Silver Firs 
whose leaves are as dark and darker than are they, 
and there is a good deal more of the green of grass hue 
in their composition than perhaps in any other of 
the nearer relations of the family. It is rather the 
density of their leaf system, and the opaque shadows 
they in consequence cast, that suggests ideas of black 
forests and sombre depths with which they have been 
associated, or those ‘forests deep and gloomy” 
with which we announced their introduction upon 
our scene. 
To sum up their merits, they bear a character all 
round for robust hardiness. 
They time their annual growth to such a season 
that they can afford to display a spontaneous dis- 
