PINE FAMILY 
Leaves.—Linear, on young trees spreading at nearly right angles 
to the branch, remote or crowded. On old trees crowded, covering 
the upper side of branches. Dark green and shining above, pale 
below ; obtusely short-pointed and occasionally emarginate, and on 
fertule branches acute or acuminate ; vary from one-half to one and 
one-quarter of an inch in Jength and one-sixtcenth of an inch wide. 
Persistent eight to ten years. Fragrant. 
flowers.—May, June. Moncecious. Staminate flowers oblong- 
cylindrical, one-quarter of an inch long. Anthers yellow, tinged 
with purple. Pistillate flowers oblong-cylindrical, one inch long ; 
scales orbicular, purple; bracts oblong-obovate, serrulate, yellow 
green, contracted into long slender tips. 
Cones.—Oblong-cylindrical, narrowed to the rounded apex, dark 
purple two to four inches long, three-quarters to one and one- 
quarter inches thick, upright; scales broad, rounded; bracts ob- 
long, serrulate, mucronate at the apex, shorter or equal to the scales. 
The Balsam Fir carries its resin, not scattered through the 
wood and under the bark as do the pines, flowing freely with 
gashes, but in superficial blisters in the bark itself. So 
characteristic is this that the New York Indians name the 
tree, Cho-koh-tung—* Blisters.” 
Whoever played as a child in northern Sonus remembers 
with what delight he punctured these blisters in order to see 
the clean limpid stream of resin flow out. As it comes from 
the tree it has the consistency of glycerine. Under the name 
of Canada Balsam it has been used in the AZaterta medica and 
it is the medium in which microscopic specimens are pre- 
served upon the plates. 
In form the Balsam Fir resembles the spruces. When 
young it is extremely beautiful, a slender symmetrical cone of 
shining, dark green foliage. In the forest the lower branches 
die but when the tree attains old age in the open, the head 
becomes sharp-pointed and spire-like, the lower limbs become 
pendulous sweeping the ground. 
The leaves-are flat, shining green above, a beautiful sil- 
very color beneath, and very fragrant in drying. They are 
arranged spirally around the branch, but appear two-ranked 
because of a twist near the base ; occasionally they spread 
from all sides of the branch, this is especially true on the 
upper branches. 
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