Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/150

transparent resin, known as Canada balsam, is collected by Indians and poor whites in the province of Quebec. This resin, which was formerly largely used in medicine on account of its stimulating action on the mucous membrane, is now chiefly used for mounting objects to be examined under the microscope, for which, and kindred purposes, it is specially suitable by reason of its transparency. (H.J.E.)

A tree attaining in America 70 feet in height and 7 feet in girth, with rather rigid branches, forming an open symmetrical pyramid. Bark smooth and with numerous blisters in young trees, becoming on older trunks covered with thin appressed reddish scales. Buds small, broadly ovoid or globose, reddish, resinous. Young shoots smooth, yellowish grey, densely covered with reddish, short, twisted or curved hairs, the pubescence being retained on the older branchlets.

Leaves on lateral branches pectinately arranged, as in A. balsamea ; linear, flat- tened, shorter than in that species, rarely exceeding ³⁄₄ inch long and ¹⁄₂₀ inch broad, uniform in width except at the shortly tapering base, rounded and bifid at the apex ; upper surface dark green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata; lower surface with two broad conspicuously white bands of stomata, each of eight to twelve lines; resin-canals median. Leaves on cone-bearing shoots upturned, crowded, broader than on barren shoots, rounded and entire at the apex.

Staminate flowers yellow tinged with red. Pistillate flowers, with rounded scales, shorter than the oblong bracts, which are broad and rounded above, ending in long slender tips.

Cones sub-sessile, ovoid, cylindrical, slightly tapering at the base and towards the rounded or flattened apex, purple, about 2 inches long by 1¹⁄₄ inch in diameter, with the bracts conspicuously exserted and reflected. Scales as in A. balsamea, but wider in proportion to their length. Bracts; claw oblong; lamina broad, trapezoidal, denticulate in margin and bifid above with a mucro in the emargination. Seed with wing about inch long; wing purplish, broadly trapezoidal, denticulate in the upper margin, about twice as long as the body of the seed.

This species can readily be distinguished from Abies balsamea by the different pubescence on the young branchlets and the shorter, more coriaceous leaves, which

Logs with this so-called "glassy” appearance are occasionally rejected; but examination showed that this peculiarity was simply due to the presence of ice, which follows the radial lines on the healed-over branches of the logs.