28 
PINUS PICEA. 
Silver Fir.* 
For Class, Order, Gen. Char. &c. 
See PiNus Sylvestris. 
Spec. Char. Leaves solitary, emarginate and pectinate. 
Scales very obtuse and closely pressed together. 
This tree seldom grows to the height of the Pinus Sylvestris, its 
bark is close, and that of the branches is of a silvery hue ; the leaves 
are solitary, short, rigid, and on the under side marked with two 
longitudinal whitish lines ; on the upper branches they are obtusely 
pointed, and grow so close as almost to cover the bark ; on the 
lower branches they are emarginated, and stand in a pinnated 
manner ; the cones are upright, large, and furnished with scales, 
which when young have a membranous appendage rising from the 
upper margin, but when fully formed the scales are very obtuse, and 
closely embrace each other. 
The silver fir is a native of Switzerland and Germany, and 
according to the Hortus Kewensis was first cultivated in the Clielsea 
Garden in 1739 ; but as thirty-six fine trees of this species are 
mentioned by Plot and Ray as growing near Newport in Shropshire, 
it must have been cultivated in the country at a much earlier period. 
There appears to be considerable difference of opinion respecting 
the particular species of turpentine yielded by this tree. Lewis and 
several other writers on the Materia Medica refer the common 
turpentine to the fin us Sylvestris, and the Terebinthina Argentora- 
tensis, or Strasburgh turpentine to the silver fir tree; while Murray, 
who follows Du Hamel and Haller, ascribes the Terebinthina Vulgaris 
to the tree here figured. Certain it is, that this tree pours out the 
turpentine so freely that it is seldom necessary to make incisions ; 
and it is by no means improbable that the diff'erence between what 
is called the common and the Strasburgh kinds may depend upon 
being the product obtained either by spontaneous exudation, or by 
Fig. a. represents the scale of a young cone. 
