According to Hansen,? it is said to thrive at Trondhjem in Norway, but Henry saw no specimens at Trondhjem or Christiania. It is often planted in Danish gardens and forests, and is quite hardy in Denmark.
According to Sargent,’ it is very hardy in the eastern United States, as far north, at least, as eastern Massachusetts, but although handsome when young, is apt to become thin and shabby here at an early stage. (H.J.E.)
ABIES WEBBIANA, Himalayan Fir
- Abies Webbiana, Lindley, Penny Cyclop. i. 30 (1833); Griffith, Icon. As. Pl. t. 371 (1854) ; Masters, Gard. Chron. xxii. 467, f. 86 (1884), and x. 395, f. 47 (189 1); Hooker, Gard. Chron. xxv. 788, ff. 174, 175 (1886), and Flora Brit. India, v. 654 (1 888); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 543 (1900); Gamble, Indian Timbers, 718 (1902).
- Abies spectabilis, Spach, Hist. Vég. xi. 422 (1842).
- Abies Mariesii, Masters, Bot. Mag. t. 8098 (1906) (not Masters, Gard. Chron. xii. 788 (1879)).
- Pinus Webbiana, Wallich, ex Lambert, Genus Pinus, 77, t. 44 (1828).
- Pinus spectabilis, D. Don, Prod. Fl. Nepal. 55 (1825).
- Picea Webbiana, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2344 (1838).
A tree, attaining in the Himalayas 150 feet or more in height and 35 feet® in girth, with thick spreading horizontal branches ; bearing a flattened crown of foliage. Bark speedily scaling on young stems; on old trunks, greyish brown, rough, irregularly fissured and very scaly. Buds large, globose, brownish, covered with resin, which conceals the keeled obtuse scales. Young shoots reddish brown with prominent pulvini, separated by deep grooves; pubescence short, erect, reddish, confined to the grooves and not spreading over the pulvini. In the second year’s shoot the pulvini and grooves are more marked, the pubescence being retained.
Leaves on lateral branchlets pectinately arranged, in two lateral sets, each of several apparent ranks; the lower ranks on each side extending outwards in the horizontal plane; the upper ranks, with leaves becoming gradually shorter, directed outwards and upwards, and forming a V-shaped depression, in the bottom of which the upper side of the branchlet is plainly visible. Leaves 1 to 24 inches long, yy inch wide or more, linear, flattened, uniform in width except at the shortly tapering base, rounded and bifid at the apex; upper surface dark green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata; lower surface with two broad conspicuously white bands of stomata; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone- bearing branchlets similar to those on barren branchlets.
Cones on short stout stalks, resembling in shape and colour those of 4. Pzndrow ; in native specimens both from Sikkim and Kumaon, smaller than those on cultivated trees; scales fan-shaped, about g inch wide and 3 inch long (not including the short obcuneate claw) ; bracts extending to near the upper edge of the scale, with an oblong claw, expanding above into a suborbicular denticulate lamina, tipped with a
1 In Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 472 (1892).
2 Silva N. Amer. xii, 98, adnot. (1898). The trees, however, at Wellesley, one of which is 59 feet by 5 feet, were slightly injured during the severe winter of 1903–4. Cf. Sargent, The Pinetum at Wellesley in 1905, p. 12.
3 Hooker, Him. Journ. ii. p. 108.
