. Diversions of a naturalist. Natural history. CHRISTMAS TREES 315 Picea excelsa by botanists. We may contrast it with the silver fir Abies pectinata {Sapin des Vosges of the French, Silbertanne of the Germans), which we take as the type of the genus Abies. In many respects the silver fir looks like the spruce. In both the stem is straight, reaching a height of 100 to 150 feet, regularly furnished with tiers of branches from the ground upwards. The leaves are needles, half an inch to an inch long, which stand out from the branchlets, but in the spruce they are quadrangular, green all over, and
. Diversions of a naturalist. Natural history. CHRISTMAS TREES 315 Picea excelsa by botanists. We may contrast it with the silver fir Abies pectinata {Sapin des Vosges of the French, Silbertanne of the Germans), which we take as the type of the genus Abies. In many respects the silver fir looks like the spruce. In both the stem is straight, reaching a height of 100 to 150 feet, regularly furnished with tiers of branches from the ground upwards. The leaves are needles, half an inch to an inch long, which stand out from the branchlets, but in the spruce they are quadrangular, green all over, and arise all round the branch, whilst in the. Fig. 34.—A thin slice across one of the foliage needles of the Silver Fir. Highly magnified. It is flatter than the similar slice of the needle of the spruce, r, r, The two resin canals ; f, the mid-rib, in which two bundles of fibres and vessels can be distinguished.—(From Veitch.) silver fir they are flat, grooved on the lower surface, which is silver-grey in colour, and they tend to be disposed right and left in two rows. Each needle has a single resin canal in the spruce, but has two in the silver fir, as may be easily seen by cutting the needles across the length with a sharp knife (Figs. 33 and 34). Each scale-like ovule-producing leaf which goes to build up the ripe seed-bearing cone has (as in all conifers theoretically) an outer scale, called a " bract," attached to it which is very short and hidden in the case of the spruce cone, but is longer than the ovuliferous scale, and very obvious in the. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir, 1847-1929. London Methuen
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Keywords: ., bookauthorlankestereray, booksubjectnaturalhistory, bookyear1915
