456 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Habitat. — Valley of the Eraser River, British Columbia (Engel- 

 mann and Sargent), and probably farther north ; south along the; 

 Cascade Mountains of Washington Territory and Oregon. 



A tree 100-150 feet in height, with a trunk sometimes 4 feet in 

 diameter, forming extensive forests on the mountains of British 

 Columbia, between 3,500 and 5,000 feet, and upon the mountains 

 south of the Columbia River between 3,000 and 4,000 feet elevation, 

 here reaching its greatest development ; its northern range not yet 

 determined. 



Wood light, hard, not strong, close-grained, compact ; bands of 

 small summer cells broad, resinous, dark-coloured, conspicuous ; 

 medullary rays numerous, thin ; colour light brown, the sapwood 

 nearly white ; specific gravity, 0'4228; ash, 0'23 (C. S. Sargent). 



This species of Fir, though discovered sixty-five years ago, was 

 not certainly known to exist until recently, the reports of early 

 explorers having lost their credence with botanists, who came to the 

 conclusion that the traditional amabilis was a form of some other 

 species, or else a mythical Fir formed by mixing specimens of two or 

 more species. 



David Douglas, the veteran botanical explorer of the North-west, 

 on his first trip up the Columbia River (1825), discovered this very 

 local species (September 7) "on the top of a high mountain, south of 

 the Grand Rapids of the Columbia River, after a laborious climb oS 

 fifteen hours." 



With it he had the good fortune to find another new Fir. The 

 first he named Pinus (the generic name then of all the pitch trees)* 

 ainabilis, on account of its lovely appearance ; the other he called' 

 P. nobilis, for apparent reason, being a most noble tree in aspect. 



The two species, he declared in his report, " are the grandest trees> 

 of the tribe." 



Returning to Fort Vancouver, he there met Dr. Scouler, another 

 successful explorer of the Great West, and the two spent the night 

 in relating experiences, "until the sun, rising over the noble stream, 

 apprised them that another day had begun." 



Douglas lost the greater part of his specimens in various 

 mishaps of long explorations during the winter season in a rough 

 country, but succeeded in preserving a few, which he carried home to 

 England and deposited with his English friends. Soon after he 

 published these two species of Firs, with a third species collected 

 earlier at the mouth of the Columbia {Abies grandis^ "the Grand 

 Fir"), in the "Companion to the Botanical Magazine," 1836, as 

 Finns amabilis and P. nobilis. 



In the year 1838 Dr. Lindley published the ^4. nobilis and ^4. 

 grandis, under the present generic name Abies, in the "Penny Cyclo- 

 paedia," and by this early publication of the species under the present 

 generic reference, Dr. Lindley becomes the namer of these two species. 



