ABIES SIBIRICA, Siberian Fir
- Abies sibirica, Ledebour, Fl. Alt. iv. 202 (1833); Masters, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xviii. 519 (1881); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Contfere, 539 (1900).
- Abies Pichta, Forbes, Pin. Woburn. 113, t. 39 (1840).
- Abies Semenovii, Fedtschenko, Bot. Centralblatt, xiii. 210 (1898), and Bull. Herb. Boissier, vii. 191 (1899).
- Pinus sibirica, Turczaninow, Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. xi. 101 (1838).
- Pinus Pichta, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 108 (1847).
- Picea Pichta, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2338 (1838).
A tree attaining about 100 feet in height. Bark smooth, greyish, and covered with resin-blisters, even in old trees. Buds small, globose, brownish, smooth, and covered with resin. Young shoots ashy-grey, with a scattered minute erect pubes- cence, quite smooth, the pulvini not being at all prominent; in the second year, the bark fissures slightly, and the pubescence is retained.
Leaves on lateral branches resembling in arrangement those of A. Veitchii, but more irregular; the lower ones pectinate, and directed outwards and forwards, a few, however, in the middle line with their apices directed forwards and downwards; on the upper side the leaves cover the branchlet and are directed forwards and upwards in the middle line, being about three-fourths the length of the lower leaves. Leaves linear, flattened, slender, up to 11⁄2 inch long, 1⁄20 inch wide, uniform in width except at the slightly narrowed base ; apex rounded, slightly bifid or entire; upper surface light green, shining, with a continuous median groove and rarely two to three short lines of stomata near the apex in the middle line; lower surface greyish in colour, with two narrow bands of stomata, each of four to five lines ; resin-canals median. Leaves on cone-bearing branches all upturned, curved, thick, short (3⁄4 inch long), acute at the apex.
Cones sessile, cylindrical, obtuse at the apex, 2 to 3 inches long, 11⁄4 inch in diameter, bluish when growing, brown when mature, with the bracts concealed. Scales; lamina fan-shaped, thin, 5⁄8 to 3⁄4 inch wide, 1⁄2 inch long; upper and lateral margins denticulate ; base with a sinus on each side of the obcuneate claw. Bract, at the base of the scale, rectangular or reniform, coarsely denticulate, 3⁄16 inch broad, with a short triangular mucro. Seed with wing about 5⁄8 inch long; wing broad, purplish, about twice as long as the body of the seed.
The form’ described by Fedtschenko as a new species (A. Semenovii) occurs in Turkestan. Specimens show longer leaves, more pubescent branchlets, and slightly different cone-scales and bracts. Korshinsky, however, in a note in the Kew herbarium, states that the Turkestan tree is identical with A. sibirica from the Ural and Altai; and the differences noted would probably disappear if there were more material to examine.
A weeping variety of this species was seen by Conwentz? in 1881 in Regel and Kesselring’s nursery at St. Petersburg.
This species, with long slender leaves covering the branchlet above, is best
1 Cf. Guinier and Maire’s remarks on this form in Bull, Soc. Bot. France, lv. 184 (1908).
2 Seltene Waldbäume in Westpreussen, 161 (1895).
