ABIES FIRMA, Japanese Fir
- Abies firma, Siebold et Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. ii. 15, t. 107 (1844); Masters, Gard. Chron. xii. 198, 199 (1879), and Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xviii. 514 (1881); Mayr, Abiet. Jap. Reiches, 31, t. 1, f. 1 (1890); Shirasawa, Icon. Ess. Forest. Japon, text 17, t. 6, ff. 1–21 (1900); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 506 (1900).
- Abies bifida, Siebold et Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. ii. 18, t. 109 (1844).
- Abies Momi,} Siebold, Verhand. Batav. Gen. xii. 101 (1830) (nomen nudum).
- Pinus firma and Pinus bifida, Antoine, Conif. 70, 79 (1846).
- Picea firma, Gordon, Pinet. 147 (1858).
A tree, attaining 150 feet in height and 16 feet in girth, Bark of branches and trunk early becoming scaly, in old trees fissuring into small plates. Buds small, ovoid, obtuse at the apex, brown, glabrous, slightly resinous. Young shoots brownish grey, with the pulvini slightly raised and separated by grooves; pubescence short, erect, scattered, confined to the grooves. Older shoots retaining the pubescence and fissuring between the pulvini, which are not very prominent.
Leaves on lateral branches pectinately arranged; those below extending laterally outwards in the horizontal plane; those on the upper side gradually shortening to nearly one-third of the length of the lower leaves, and directed in two sets laterally outwards and slightly upwards, forming a shallow V-shaped arrange- ment.? Leaves up to 1½ inch long, linear, flattened, very coriaceous, shortly tapering to the base, broadest about the middle (⅛ inch or more), gradually narrowing to the acute apex, which ends in two sharp cartilaginous points, unequal in size; upper surface dark green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata ; lower surface with broad greyish bards of stomata, each of about ten to twelve lines ; resin-canals close to the epidermis of the lower surface. Leaves on cone-bearing branches upturned, rounded and entire or only minutely bifid at the apex.
Staminate flowers, ½ inch long, ovoid-conic, surrounded at the base by two to three series of broadly ovate scales.
Cones on stout short stalks, cylindrical, tapering shortly at the base, and obtuse or flattened at the slightly narrowed apex, yellowish-green before ripening, brown when mature, 4 to 5 inches long by 1½ to 1¾ inches in diameter, with the tips of the bracts exserted between the scales but not reflexed. Scales: lamina 11⁄16, inches wide by ⅝ inch long, broadly trapezoidal; upper margin thin, minutely denticulate ; lateral margins convex, denticulate ; base broad with a sinus on each side of the obcuneate claw. Bract extending either nearly up to the edge of the scale or beyond it, always visible externally between the scales, oblong in the lower half, expanding above into an oval lamina, which ends in a triangular cusp. Seed-wing broadly trapezoidal, about twice the length of the body of the seed. Seed with wing nearly ⅞ inch long. Cotyledons four.
1 This name, which has been adopted by Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 101, adnot., was published without any descrip-
tion, and cannot be maintained. Cf. Masters, Gard. Chron. loc. cit.
2 On vigorous shoots, the leaves are directed more upwards so that the V-shaped depression is very acute.
