Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/97

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Abies
771

Cultivation

It seems to grow fairly well though rather slowly on soils which contain no lime ; but it will not live on the calcareous soil at Colesborne.

We have seen no trees of considerable size. One at Tregrehan near St. Austell, measured 27 feet by 2 feet in 1908; and another at Ochtertyre, Perth- shire, measured 30 feet by 2 feet in the same year. Mr. Bean’ noticed in 1906 a specimen 31 feet high at Murthly Castle, and another 20 feet high at Dalkeith Palace. Small specimens will be found in most collections of conifers; and the young trees at Kew at present appear to thrive better than most species of Abies. (H.J.E.)

ABIES MARIESII, Maries’ Fir

Abies Mariesii, Masters,? Gard. Chron. xii. 788, f. 129 (1879), and Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xviii. 519 (1881) ; Mayr, Abiet. Japan. Reiches, 40, t. 2, f. 5 (1890); Shirasawa, Icon. Essences Forest. Japon, text 15, t. 4. ff. 15-28 (1900); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 520 (1900).

A tree, attaining in Japan about 80 feet in height and 6 feet in girth. Buds small, globose, resinous; terminal buds on strong shoots are girt at the base by a ring of ovate, acuminate, rusty-red pubescent scales. Young shoots densely covered with a rusty-red tomentum, retained more or less in older shoots, the bark slightly fissuring in the third year.

Leaves on lateral branches arranged as in Abies Nordmanniana, the median leaves on the upper side almost appressed to the stem in imbricating ranks, and about 12 to 23 the length of the lower leaves, which spread pectinately outwards and slightly forwards in the horizontal plane. Leaves linear, flattened, tapering at the base and gradually widening beyond the middle, so that their broadest part is in the upper third; about 34 inch in maximum length, 110 to 112 inch wide; apex rounded and bifid; upper surface yellowish green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata; lower surface with two white bands of stomata, each of eight or nine lines; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone-bearing branches all appressed more or less to the shoot, upturned, and shorter than on barren branches.

Cones sessile, deep blue with a velvety lustre before ripening, dark brown when mature, ellipsoid, with an obtuse apex, about 4 inches long by 2 inches in diameter. Scales fan-shaped ; lamina 1 inch wide, 78 inch long, upper margin undulate, lateral margins with two denticulate wings; claw broadly obcuneate. Bract with a broad obcuneate claw, expanding just above the base of the scale, into a broadly oval lamina, which is emarginate at the apex with a short mucro. Seed-wing nearly twice the length of the body of the seed; seed with wing about 78 inch long.

The cones show that the tree is nearly related to Abies Webbiana ; but it differs entirely from that species in the characters of the branchlets and foliage.


1 Cf. Kew Bulletin, 1906, pp. 260, 268.

2 Abies Mariesii, Masters, Bot. Mag. t. 8098 (1906), described from a tree at Dunphail, Morayshire, is referable to A, Webbiana, as mentioned in our account of the latter species.