BOTANY. 
49 
there exhibiting the same characters as in the Cascades, near the Columbia, and clearly dis¬ 
tinguished from P. balsamea by its immense size, longer leaves, and different cones. The only 
decided character which the two species have in common is the accumulation of the balsam in 
cysts in the trunks of small trees ; this is, however, not peculiar to P. balsamea among eastern 
trees, as a similar balsam is secreted on the trunk of P. Fraseri. 
Dr. Bigelow mentions the occurrence of the same balsam fir which he saw near Sonora, in 
California, in the more elevated portions of the San Francisco and Sandia mountains of New 
Mexico. If this should prove to be the same species with that observed by us further north, in 
California and Oregon, it would give a very extensive north and south range to the tree—a 
range of at least 20° of latitude. This will not seem so surprising when we consider the great 
differences of elevation of its northern and southern habitats, and the great differences of vege¬ 
tation of the sub-tropical bases and arctic summits of tbe mountains of New Mexico and southern 
California. 
That the balsam fir of central and northern California are the same, is probable from the 
fact that the associate trees, P. ponderosa, P. Lambertiana, Libocedrus decurrens, &c., are the 
same in each case ; and the lumbermen and others who have seen the balsam firs in different 
parts of the Sierra Nevada have regarded them as all of one species. 
We first met with P. grandis near McCumber’s, (lat. 41°, altitude 4,000 feet,) a few miles 
northeast of Fort Reading, California. It there forms a conspicuous element in the magnifi¬ 
cent forest whch I have described in speaking of the sugar and yellow pines, several of which I 
measured ; the trunks were scarcely inferior in girth or altitude to the pines, being twenty-one 
feet in circumference three feet from the ground, and having an estimated altitude of 150 feet. 
From this point to the Columbia it was found on all the wooded mountains. The general port 
of the tree is very well given in the accompanying plate, (VI,) which represents the vigorous 
and imimpeded growth of an individual about one hundred feet in height. This portrait was 
taken on the eastern slope of the Cascade mountains, in Oregon, lat. 44° 12' N., at an elevation 
of nearly 5,000 feet above the sea. It will be seen to be more spreading than most firs, broader 
near the top, and less conical. When forming part of the dense forests of the lower Columbia, it 
is much more slender, and the branches, instead of descending as low as represented in the plate, 
are confined to the top. Under such circumstances, the trunk is straight, smooth, and cylin¬ 
drical, and furnishes lumber of excellent quality. On the Columbia and Willamette it is 
known as tbe “ white fir,” to distinguish it from the “ red fir,” (Abies Douglasii.) Most of 
the lumber exported from Oregon is derived from these two trees. 
Pice a nobilis. The noble fir. 
P. nobilis, Loud. Arboret, 4, p. 2342,jf%. 2249. 
Pinus nobilis, Dougl. Lamb. Pinus, 3, t. 22. 
Abies nobilis, Lindl. Knight’s Cyclop. 1, p. 9. 
Pinus (Abies) nobilis, Hook. Flor. Bor.-Amer. 2,p. 162. 
Abies nobilis, Nutt. Sylv. 3, t. 117. 
Description. —Tree large, erect, strict; branches short, rigid ; leaves in many rows, short, 
falciform, and curved upward, very rigid, keeled on both sides, ancipital acute, pale green, 
not glaucous below ; cones large, cylindrical, obtuse, fulvous, more or less covered by the 
reflected bracts ; scales triangular, as broad as long, margins reflected, entire ; bracts longer 
than the scale, reflected, fimbriated or entire, terminating in an elongated awn-like point; seed 
much longer than wide, somewhat angular ; wing twice as long as broad, entire, pellucid. 
7 Z 
