ABIES NOBILIS, Noble Fir
- Abies nobilis, Lindley, Penny Cycl. i. 30 (1833); Masters, Gard. Chron. xxiv. 652, f. 146 (1885), and Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxii, 188 (excl. habitat Mt. Shasta, and var. magnifica) (1886); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 133, t. 617 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 65 (1905); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 521 (1900).
- Pinus nobilis, Douglas, in Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 147 (1836).
- Picea nobilis, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2342 (1838).
A tree, attaining in America occasionally 250 feet in height with a girth up to 24 feet, but more usually 150 to 200 feet high. Bark smooth on young trees, becoming on old trunks reddish-brown and deeply divided by broad flat ridges, irregularly broken by cross fissures and covered with thick closely appressed scales.
Buds concealed by the leaves at the tips of the branchlets, ovoid-globose ; terminal bud resinous above and surrounded at the base by a ring of lanceolate acuminate or subulately pointed pubescent brown scales; lateral buds with ovate basal scales. Young shoots smooth, densely covered with minute rusty brown tomentum, which is retained in the second year.
Leaves on lateral branches pectinate below, extending outwards in the horizontal plane in two lateral sets; above, the leaves in the middle line, much shorter, com- pletely cover the shoot, from which they arise curving upwards, after being appressed to the branchlet for a short distance near their bases, their tips usually having a slight inclination forwards. Leaves up to about 1¼ inch long, 1⁄16 inch wide, linear, flattened, narrowed at the base, uniform in width elsewhere, rounded and entire at the apex ; upper surface with a continuous median groove and variable as regards the stomata, which are sometimes in two definite bands each of six to eight lines or some- times present as a few irregular lines, or rarely absent; lower surface with two narrow bands of stomata, each of five to six lines ; resin-canals marginal.
Leaves on cone-bearing branches all upturned, thickened, and with sharp cartilaginous points.
Staminate flowers reddish. Pistillate flowers with broad rounded scales, much shorter than the nearly orbicular bracts, which are erose in margin and contracted above into slender elongated reflexed tips.
Cones cylindrical, but narrowing towards the full and rounded apex; 4 to 5 inches long by 2 inches in diameter on wild trees, 6 to 10 inches long by 3 to 4 inches in diameter on cultivated trees ; pubescent, purplish-brown with green bracts when growing, the bracts becoming bright chestnut brown in the mature fruit. Scales: lamina, 1¼ to 1½ inch broad, 1 inch long, variable in shape ; gradually narrowing to the base with straight lateral margins, or rounded and denticulate on the sides above the middle and contracted below; claw short, clavate. Bracts exserted and strongly reflexed, covering the greater part of the scale next below ; lamina, broad, full and rounded above, fimbriate in margin, and with a conspicuous midrib prolonged into a mucro about ½ inch long; claw long and cuneate. Seeds pale brown, about ½ inch
