equal breadth, from 3 to 6 inches long, 2I to 2" inches in diameter, with exferted and reflexed membranaceous
brads concealing much of the fcales. Scale difpofed in a fpiral of five rows very horizontally, triangular,
lamelliform, with the outer margin turned over in a finuate lip ; ftipitate, covered all over with a clofe
pubefcence, moft confpicuous on the outer lip; fides entire (not ferrate, as reprefented in Loudon's figure);
length, without the brad, from 3 to ij inch long, and the fame in breadth. Brad, of variable proportions,
applied clofely to the back of the fcale; being confolidated to it at the back of the narrow ftipe, where
it is the breadth of the latter, and folded clown upon its fides; it increafes very (lightly in breadth until
about a quarter of its length from the outer lip of the fcale; it then rapidly widens out into a flat, broad,
rounded, membranaceous, cinnamon-coloured plate, which turns fuddenly and (harply backward (i e., downwards,
when the cone is in its natural ered pofition), covering the lips of the fcales below it; it has a
torn, incifed, fringe-like margin, with the apex prolonged into a longer or fhorter (tiff tooth or point. Seeds
triagonally ovate, compreffed and acute at the bafe, about twice as long as broad, wedge-fhaped, inequilateral,
irregularly truncate, and fubcrenulate at the top. Wing about twice the length of the feed, ftraight
both in front and back, prolonging the triangular form of the feed, irregularly truncate at the apex. Tefta
coriaceous. Cotyledons, 6-8.
A fpecies of monftrofity fometimes occurs in the catkins, fimilar to that which Dr Alexander Dickfon
has defcribed in the " Tranfadions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh " (i860) as bifexual cones
on the Spruce Fir. The ftamens do not continue up to the point of the catkin, but are replaced at the
tip by a number of long brads. In the cafes noticed by Dr Dickfon he found a fmall fcale at the bafe of
thefe brads; and he therefore, probably rightly, confidered the catkins bifexual, the brads at the point of the
catkin being in that cafe equivalent to undeveloped fcales and brads of the cone. In the fpecimens of P. I k
Fig. I (magnified). Fig. 2 (magnified).
nobilis to which we refer, there appears no brad at the bafe of thefe apical quafi-fcales, which mud therefore
be, not the homologues of the female fcales, but the reprefentatives of the brads or leaves, and the phenomenon
the fame as the common one of a rofe with a green heart, or a bundle of brads growing in the
centre of the petals. In the monftrofity referred to, the ftamens are fhorter and rounder than in the normal
form, and, inftead of the turbinated apex, are drawn up into a long peak [figs. 7 and 8]. This inftance was
inftrudive, in other respects, as (hewing the procefs by which the ftamcn arrives at its ordinary form. Fig. 7
fhews the ftamen before it burfts; fig. 8 (hews the tranfverfe rupture; and figs. 4, 5, and 6 the ordinary
mature form of the ftamen—fig. 4 being a front, fig. 5 a back, and fig. 6 a fide view.
Defcription.—Perhaps the lovelieft of the Abies tribe: a tree growing to a height of 200 feet, and 4 feet
in diameter at the bafe. The foliage of a fine green; when young, of the paleft and moft delicate pea-green,
which afterwards becomes emerald-green, and, when older, of a darker hue. The branches grow nearly at
right angles from the trunk, forming a feries of horizontal ftages denfely clothed with beautiful fliort curved
leaves, which have a fomewhat filvery or mealy ftriation both above and below. The leaves are more curved
on the younger branches than on the older. The bark is alh-grey on the young leaves; on the trunk
cinnamon