86 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
It has a strong resemblance to the silver fir of Europe, a much 
loftier and nobler tree. The American tree is known by the 
name of fir balsam, or balsam fir, or simply, fir. 
The root of the balsam fir, like that of the other pines, pene- 
trates to a small depth, in young trees, not more than a foot; 
and extends horizontally to the distance of five or six, rarely 
ten feet, covered with a bright red or crimson bark, which 
separates in thin scales. The trunk is perfectly even and 
straight, and tapers regularly and rapidly to the top. It isa 
thrifty grower, and the young shoots are stout and large, and 
covered with a green bark striate with gray. They are close 
set with leaves in regular spirals, which continue many years, 
becoming more and more remote by the growth of the stem, 
and, when they fall, leaving a large, oval, horizontal scar of 
great permanence. The bark becomes, from year to year, of a 
deeper green, and remains smooth, swollen at intervals with the 
vesicles produced by the crypts containing the balsam, and in 
the larger stocks, on its native mountains, blotched with mem- 
branaceous lichens. 
The branches, which in young trees incline upward, and on 
older ones become nearly horizontal, with a slight upward 
sweep, are in whorls of about five, often with the regularity of 
the branches of a chandelier, with occasionally scattered soli- 
tary limbs between. The leaves are sessile, from one-fourth of 
an inch to an inch in length, smooth, narrow, pointed, green 
with faint white lines above, with a silvery blue tinge beneath, 
produced by many lines of minute, shining, resinous dots. 
Axranged in spirals, they spread equally on every side of the 
stem or branch, but when the latter is horizontal, they so bend 
upwards from the lower side as to seem to form but two rows, 
or to be crowded on the upper side. 
The buds, round and small, are enveloped in resin; those on 
the ends of the principal and larger shoots, are surrounded by 
about five smaller ones. Those on the lateral shoots are single 
or two or three together; and solitary buds are scattered irregu- 
larly at various points. 
The stamens are in oblong heads or aments, one-fourth of an 
inch long, rather densely crowded on the lower side, near the 
