Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/99
ABIES GRANDIS, Giant Fir
- Abies grandis, Lindley, Penny Cyel. i. 30 (1833); Masters, Gard. Chron. xv. 179, ff. 33-36 (1881) xvii, goo (1882), and xxiv. 563, ff. 128-131 (1885), and Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.), xxii. 174 (1886) ; Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 117, t. 612 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 60 (1905); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 510 (1900).
- Abies Gordoniana, Carrière, Conif. 298 (1867).
- Abies amabilis, Murray, Proc. Roy. Hort. Soc. iii. 310 (1863) (not Forbes).
- Pinus grandis, Hooker, Fl. Bor. Amer. ii. 163 (1839).
- Picea grandis, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. 2341 (in part) (1838).
A tree attaining in America in the coast regions 300 feet in height and 16 feet in girth; but on the mountains of the interior rarely more than 100 feet high by 6 feet in girth ; often smaller and stunted at high elevations. Bark of young trees smooth, thin, and pale; of older trees in America, brownish, divided by shallow fissures into low flat ridges roughened by thick appressed scales ; in cultivated trees fissuring into thin irregular plates, exposing the reddish brown cortex. Buds small, conical, obtuse at the apex, resinous, roughened by the raised tips of the scales. Young shoots olive-green, smooth, with a minute, erect, not dense pubescence.
Leaves on lateral branchlets pectinate, in two lateral sets in the horizontal plane, each set of apparently two ranks, the upper rank with leaves about half the length of those below. Leaves linear, flattened, up to about 11⁄2 to 2 inches long, 1⁄10 to 1⁄12 inch in width, narrowed at the base, uniform in breadth elsewhere, with a rounded and bifid apex ; upper surface dark green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata; lower surface with two white bands of stomata, each of about eight lines; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone-bearing branches crowded, less spreading or nearly erect, blunt or bifid at the apex, shorter than on sterile branches.
Cones 2 to 4 inches long by 1 to 11⁄4 inch in diameter, cylindrical, slightly narrowed towards the rounded or retuse apex, bright green in colour, with the bracts concealed. Scales resembling those of Adzes Lowiana, but smaller. Bract situated a little above the base of the scale, quadrangular; upper margin broad, denticulate, deeply emarginate, and with a minute mucro. Seeds 3⁄8 inch long, light brown, with pale shining wings about 3 inch long.
Identification
Abies grandis is readily distinguished by the very flat pectinate arrangement of the leaves ; those of the upper rank being about half the length of those in the lower rank. Abies Lowiana, when growing feebly, resembles it somewhat in arrange- ment; but in this species the upper surface of the leaves has stomatic lines, absent in A. grandis, and the leaves in the upper rank are only slightly shorter than those in the lower rank. (A.H.)