EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
257 
display the same symmetiy as full grown trees. The deep 
green color of the verdure of the Balm of Gilead Fir is 
retained unchanged in all its beauty through the severest 
winters, which causes it to contrast agreeably with the 
paler tints of the Spruces. On the trunks of trees of this 
species are found small vesicles or blisters, filled with a 
liquid resin, which is extracted and sold under the name 
of Balm of Gilead,* for its medicinal virtues. 
The European Silver Fir (A.picea) strongly resembles, 
when young, the Balsam Fir. But its leaves are longer 
and coarser, and the cones are much larger, while it also 
attains twice or three times the size of the latter. In the 
forests of Germany it sometimes rises over 100 feet ; and 
it always becomes a large tree in a favorable soil. It 
grows slowly during the first twenty years, but afterwards 
advances with much more rapidity. It thrives well, and 
is quite hardy in this country. 
The Norway Spruce Fir (A. communis f) is by far the 
handsomest of that division of the Firs called the Spruces. 
It generally rises with a perfectly straight trunk to the 
neight of from 80 to 150 feet. It is a native, as its name 
denotes, of the colder parts of Europe, and consequently 
grows well in the northern states. The branches hang 
down with a fine graceful curve or sweep ; and although 
the leaves are much paler than those of the foregoing 
kinds, yet the thick fringe-like tufts of foliage which clothe 
the branches, give the whole tree a rich, dark appearance. 
The large cones, too, always nearly six inches long, are 
* The true Balm ol Gilead is an Asiatic herb, Arnyris gileadensis. 
+ Abies excelsa. 
n 
