ABIES SACHALINENSIS, Saghalien Fir
- Abies sachalinensis, Masters, Gard. Chron, xii. 588, f. 97 (1879), and Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xviii. 517 (1881); Mayr, Abiet. jap. Reiches, 42, t. 3, f. 6 (1890); Sargent, Forest Flora of Japan, 83 (1894); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 537 (1900).
- Abies Veitchii, Lindley, var. sachalinensis, F. Schmidt, Mém. Acad. St. Pétersbourg, sér. 7, xii. 175, t. 4, ff. 13–17 (1868).
A tree attaining in Yezo 130 feet in height. Bark smooth, grey in colour. Buds small, ovoid-globose, rounded at the apex, covered with white resin. Young shoots grey, with prominent pulvini and grooves; pubescence, short, dense, and confined to the grooves. In the second year the pulvini, grooves, and pubescence are well-marked.
Leaves on lateral shoots arranged similarly to those of A. Nordmanniana ; those below longest, pectinate in two sets in the horizontal plane, directed outwards and forwards; those above covering the branchlet in imbricated ranks, the median leaves shortest, directed forwards and appressed to the shoot. Leaves linear, flattened, slender, very thin, about 11⁄2 inch long, 1⁄20 inch wide, uniform in width except at the shortly tapering base; apex rounded and shortly bifid; upper surface grass-green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata; lower surface with two narrow bands of stomata, each of seven to eight lines; resin-canals median. Leaves on cone-bearing shoots up- turned, acute or rounded at the minutely bifid apex.
Cones, 31⁄2 inches long, 11⁄4 inch in diameter, cylindrical, tapering to an obtuse or slightly acute apex, conspicuously marked externally by the reflexed greenish bracts, which leave little of the surface of the scales visible. Scales crescentic, small ; lamina, 1⁄2 to 5⁄8 inch wide, nearly 1⁄4 inch long, deeply auricled by two basal sinuses, the denticulate wings ending in a sharp point on each side of the sinus; upper margin entire; outer surface densely tomentose. Bract with a broad cuneate claw, expanding above into an almost orbicular lamina, emarginate and mucronate on its upper margin. Seed with wing 3⁄8 inch long; wing broader than long and shorter than the body of the seed.
Varieties
Var. nemorensis, Mayr, loc. cit. This variety is met with in north-eastern Yezo and the Kurile Isles, and is distinguished by its smaller cones, about 21⁄2 inches in length, with minute concealed bracts. In the cones this variety resembles A. Veutchii.
Sargent mentions a curious variety found by Miyabe in central Yezo, in which the bark, wood, and bracts of the cone are red in colour.
Identification
Abies sachalinensis agrees in many technical characters with A. Veitchii, but owing to its longer and more slender leaves looks different from that species, and would
