Home › Volumes › Trees › How to Know the Trees

Key to Species — Part 7

A. Leaves flat and grooved down the middle.

B. Colour of leaves dark green, shining, with pale linings.

C. Scales concealing the bracts of the cones.

D. Cones purple.

E. Leaves straight, 2-ranked, not crowded; bark smooth, brown. (A. balsamea) BALSAM FIR

EE. Leaves curved, erect on twigs, crowded; bark rough, grey. (A. amabilis) WHITE FIR

DD. Cones green; leaves about 2 inches long. (A. grandis) WHITE FIR

CC. Scales not concealing the pale green, reflexed bracts of the purple cones. (A. Fraseri) BALSAM FIR

BB. Colour of leaves pale blue-green.

C. Cones purple. (A. lasiocarpa) BALSAM FIR

CC. Cones purple, green or yellow.

D. Bracts of cone scales concealed; leaves uniformly glaucous. (A. concolor) WHITE FIR

DD. Bracts of cone scales extending into long, whiplike projections; leaves yellow-green, pale below. (A. venusta) SILVER FIR

AA. Leaves mostly 4-angled, thick, blue-green; cones purple.

B. Cone scales covered by pale green, reflexed bracts. (A. nobilis) RED FIR

BB. Cone scales covering bracts. (A. magnifica) RED FIR

Twenty-five species of Abies are widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere, including the northern highlands of Africa. Nordmann's fir (A. Nordmanniana) has come from the Causcasus into extensive cultivation in our Eastern and Northern States. It is supplemented by four European and two Japanese species of recognised merit for ornamental planting. The beauty of our native firs has been pointed out in the names botanists gave them. But they do not thrive, as a rule, in cultivation. For the lawn, we wisely choose exotic species.

Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea, Mill.)--A broad, pyramidal tree, 50 to 60 feet high, with slender pubescent branchlets. Bark brown, thin, broken into scaly plates with dried balsam in white blisters. Wood soft, weak, coarse, brown with yellow streaks, not durable. Leaves blunt, dark green, lustrous above, with pale lining, 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches long, spreading in 2-ranked order. Flowers axillary, staminate, yellow shaded to purplish; pistillate purple. Fruit erect, rich purple, oblong-cylindrical, 2 to 4 inches long, blunt at ends; scales broad, entire, closely overlapping. Preferred habitat, swamps or hilly slopes. Distribution, Labrador through Canada and New England, to Minnesota; south along mountains to southwestern Virginia. Uses: Wood used for box material; bark furnishes oil and Canada balsam, used in medicine and in the arts. Fresh leaves cut for balsam pillows.

In the North Woods the hunter cuts the fragrant boughs of the fir balsam to make his bed, and the ladies of every camping party industriously shear balsam twigs in order to fill sofa pillows later with the leaves. The native finds it profitable to collect the limpid balsam by draining the white resin blisters that occur plentifully on the smooth bark of young trees, and on the limbs of older ones. Wounding the tree produces increased flow. Whole families are often employed in this enterprise. The resin thus obtained is the "Canada balsam" employed in every laboratory, for the mounting of microscopic specimens. It is used also in the practise of medicine and in other useful arts. "Oil of fir" is also obtained from the bark.

The erect cones of this tree distinguish it from the spruces with which it grows, and the hemlocks whose leaves are also pale beneath and 2-ranked in arrangement. Balsam fir leaves are blunt and stemless. Hemlock leaves have minute petioles.

The cultivation of balsam fir has been rather stupidly continued in the Northeastern States, despite the fact that the tree is short lived and early loses its lower limbs. There are other firs that may be as easily obtained and grown, and these are chosen by wise planters for their greater beauty and longer life.

The White or Lovely Fir (A. amabilis, Forbes), of the high mountain slopes of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, comes to its greatest estate in the Olympic range. Here it dominates other fir trees, a giant 150 to 250 feet high, with a trunk 4 to 6 feet through. The spiry pyramid is formed of limbs that strike downward and outward in curves of remarkable grace and symmetry. In open groves the trees are clothed to the ground. In dense forests the trunks are bare except for a tufted crown. The bark is thick and broken into irregular plates on very old trees; on younger ones it is silvery grey and smooth. The wood is light brown or white, weak, hard and close grained. It is occasionally used in interior finish of houses. In cultivation the tree forgets its wild beauty and becomes commonplace. It grows in Europe, but not in our Atlantic States. Only in its natural range is it truly the "lovely fir" of the mountains.

The White Fir (A. grandis, Lindl.) earns its name by the silvery linings of its leaves. It grows from Vancouver Island south to middle California, and eastward into Idaho. It climbs from the sea to elevations of 4,000 to 7,000 feet, mingled with other conifers, but keeping along the borders of streams. This white firis grand indeed in the coast region, where it mounts upward with slender trunk to the height of 200 to 300 feet. Its limbs sweep outward in curves of the utmost grace, and the contrast of dark green with silvery white in the foliage makes the tree cheerful in the extreme. The flowers are yellow and the cones brilliant green, the broad, entire scales quite concealing the bracts.