THE SILVER FIR. 
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appears to be on the Pyrenees, where it is found at an elevation 
of 6500 feet, forming pure forests of considerable area. 
Specimens have been recorded in Southern Germany that have 
attained a height of nearly 200 feet, but in this country a more 
usual stature is from 100 to 120 feet, with a bole girth between 
10 and 15 feet. Its trunk is straight and erect, tapering gently, 
and covered with smooth bark, of a greyish-brown colour, 
Silver Fir. 
A, cone. 
which in aged specimens becomes rugged and fissured longi- 
tudinally, as shown in our photo, and of a silvery grey colour. 
It retains its lower branches for a period of forty to fifty years, 
but after that age they begin to fall off. Whilst the tree is 
growing up — which is, loughly speaking, during its first two 
hundred years — the crown forms a slender bush ; but its vertical 
growth completed, the crown grows laterally, and becomes flat- 
topped. Its life-period covers about four hundred years. 
