ABIES CILICICA, Cilician Fir
- Abies cilicica, Carrière, Conif. 229 (1855), and Flore des Serres, xi, 67, t. 1108 (1856) ; Tchihatcheff, Asie Mineure, ii. 494 (1860); Heuzé in Rev. Hort. 1856, p. 81, f. 14; Kent, Veitch’s Man.Coniferæ, 500 (1900); Hickel, in Bull. Soc. Dend. France, 1908, p. 183.
- Abies selinusia, Carrière, Flore des Serres, xi. 69 (1856).
- Pinus cilicica, Kotschy, Oestr. Bot. Wochenbl. iii. 409 (1853).
- Picea cilicica, Gordon, Pin. Suppl. 50 (1862).
A tree attaining in Asia Minor 100 feet in height and 7 feet in girth. Bark ashy-grey in colour, smooth in young trees, deeply fissured and scaly in old trees. Buds? small, non-resinous, ovoid, acute at the apex ; scales few, keeled, with their tips more or less free and not appressed. Young shoots smooth, greyish-brown, with scattered short erect pubescence; bark fissuring slightly on the second year’s shoot.
Leaves on lateral branches usually pectinately arranged, the upper ranks pointing outwards and upwards, thus forming a V-shaped depression above between the two lateral sets; on vigorous shoots, the median leaves on the upper side are directed forwards and upwards, and cover the branchlet, the V-shaped depression being obliterated. Leaves thin and slender, 1 to 11⁄4 inch long, 1⁄16 inch wide, linear, flattened, uniform in width except at the tapering base, apex rounded or acute and slightly bifid; upper surface light green with a continuous median groove and usually without stomata, rarely with two to three short lines in the groove near the apex ; under surface with two narrow greyish bands of stomata, each of six to seven lines; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone-bearing branches, upturned, curved, more rigid and broader than those on barren branches, minutely bifid at the truncate or obtuse apex.
Cones of wild trees subsessile or on short stout stalks, cylindrical, tapering to an acute apex, 6 to 9 inches long by 2 to 21⁄2 inches in diameter, brownish when ripe. Scales? larger than in any other species; lamina 13⁄4 inch wide, 7⁄8 inch long, fan-shaped, upper margin thin and entire, lateral margins convex, denticulate, with a sinus on each side; claw short, obcuneate. Bract with an oblong claw, expanding above into an ovate or quadrangular denticulate lamina, tipped with a short mucro, extending to 1⁄3 or 1⁄2 the height of the scale. Seed-wing about 11⁄2 times as long as the seed; seed with wing about 11⁄4 inch long. In cultivated specimens, scales smaller, 11⁄2 inch wide by 3⁄4 inch long; bracts with a very short claw and a lamina not reaching more than 1⁄4 the height of the scale ; seed with wing about 1 inch long.
Distribution
This species is confined to Asia Minor and northern Syria, occurring on the Lebanon and the Antitaurus, and forming, in company with the cedar, great forests
1 The buds are characteristic ; and, as Hickel points out, distinguish this species from all the others.
2 The peculiar hook-like processes of the scales which occur in some specimens are probably abnormal.
