Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/79

A tree attaining in the Himalayas over 200 feet in height, with a girth of 25 feet. Narrowly pyramidal in habit, with the branches small and short. Bark smooth and silvery grey when young; greyish brown, deeply and longitudinally fissured on old trunks.

Buds large, globose, covered with white resin. Young shoots quite smooth, grey, glabrous, the bark fissuring slightly in the second year. Leaves on lateral branches mostly pectinate below, pointing forwards and outwards in the horizontal plane, some of the median leaves, however, being directed downwards and forwards ; above, covering the shoot, those in the middle line much shorter and directed forwards and slightly upwards. Leaves, soft in texture, up to 24 inches long, very narrow (¹⁄₁₆ inch wide), linear, flattened, shortly tapering at the base and narrowing gradually in the anterior third to the acute apex, which is bifid with sharp unequal cartilaginous points; upper surface dark green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata; lower surface paler with two greyish bands of stomata, each of about eight lines; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone-bearing shoots all upturned and more or less directed forwards, covering the shoot in the middle line above, shorter than on barren branches and only slightly bifid at the apex.

Cones on short stout stalks, bluish when growing, brown when mature, cylindrical, about 6 inches long by 3 inches in diameter. Scales; lamina about 1¹⁄₄ inch wide by ³⁄₄ inch long, fan-shaped, variable in form, with two slight wings in cultivated speci- mens, not winged and with the lateral edges straight or curved in wild specimens, base auricled. Bracts with the expanded portion situated on the scale just above the claw, oval, denticulate, emarginate above with a minute mucro, Seed with wing about 1 inch long, the wing narrowly trapezoidal and about 1¹⁄₂ times as long as the body of the seed.

Abies Pindrow is remarkably different in most characters from Abies Webbiana, with which it has been united by many authors. The trees are very distinct in habit, A. Pindrow forming, both in the Himalayas and in cultivation in England, a narrow pyramid with short branches; while A. Webbiana is a broader tree with wide-spreading branches. The bark of the former is smooth, that of the latter scaly. The former has smooth, glabrous, grey shoots; the latter has shoots with