ABIES BRACTEATA, Bristle-Cone Fir
- Abies bracteata, Nuttall, Sylva MV. Amer. iii. 137, t. 118 (1849); Hooker, Bot, Mag. t. 4740 (1853); Masters, Gard. Chron. v. 242, f. 44 (1889), and vii. 672, £112 (1890); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 493 (1900).
- Abies venusta, Koch, Dendrol. ii. 210 (1873); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii, 129, tt. 615, 616 (1898), and Trees N. Amer. 63 (1905).
- Pinus venusta, Douglas, Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 152 (1836).
- Pinus bracteata, Don, Trans. Linn. Soc. xvii..442 (1837).
- Picea bracteata, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2348 (1838) ; Coleman, Garden, xxxv. 12, with fig. (1889).
A tree attaining in America 150 feet in height and g feet in girth. Bark brown, smooth; becoming, near the base in old trees, slightly fissured and broken into thick appressed scales. Buds unique in the genus, elongated, fusiform, broadest near the base, and gradually tapering to a sharp point, about ½ to ¾ inch long, brown in colour, non-resinous; scales thin, membranous, glabrous, loosely imbricated, obtuse at the apex, shorter at the base of the bud, gradually lengthening above. Young shoots glabrous, greenish, with slightly raised pulvini and incon- spicuous furrows. Base of the shoots usually ringed with the scars of the previous season’s bud-scales, which in most cases all fall off and do not persist in part, as is usual in other species.
Leaves on lateral branches pectinately arranged, those below spreading outwards in two sets in the horizontal plane; those above slightly shorter, falcate, directed outwards and slightly upwards and forwards, forming a shallow V-shaped depression on the upper side of the branchlet. Leaves, up to 2 inches long, 5 inch wide, rigid, thin, flat, linear, ending in long spine-like cartilaginous points, never bifid; widest in the lower third, gradually tapering to the apex, and abruptly narrowed close to the base; upper surface dark-green, shining, slightly concave in the lower half and flat near the apex, no definite median groove being formed ; lower surface with two wide white bands of stomata, each of 10 to 12 lines; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone-bearing branches upturned, falcate.
Male flowers, 1¼ to 1½ inch long, cylindric, shortly-stalked, surrounded at the base by numerous lanceolate, fawn-coloured parchment-like scales, similar to those of the leaf-buds. Pistillate flowers, with oblong scales rounded above and nearly as long as the cuneate obcordate yellow-green bracts, which end in slender elongated awns.
Cones, remarkable for the long spiny rigid tips to the bracts, ovoid, rounded and full at the apex, 3 to 4 inches long, about 2 inches in diameter, glabrous, resinous, purplish brown. Scales, about 1 inch broad by ½ inch long, almost reniform; upper margin incurved, with a short obtuse denticulate cusp; claw obcuneate. Bracts oblong-obovate, adnate to the scale to beyond the middle and
1 Remarkable, as all the other species of Abies have the scales of the cones pubescent.
