Description
The Fraser Fir is a small evergreen coniferous tree growing to between 30 and 50 feet (10–15 m) tall (rarely to 80 ft ) with a trunk 16 to 20 inches (40–50 cm) across (rarely up to 30 in, 75 cm). The crown is conical, with straight branches either horizontal or angled 40° upward from the trunk; it is dense when the tree is young, but becomes more open as it ages. The bark is thin and smooth, gray-brown with numerous resin blisters on young trees, becoming fissured and scaly with age. The foliage is strongly turpentine-scented.
The leaves are needle-like, arranged spirally on the twigs but twisted at the base to spread in two rows; they are 0.4 to 0.9 inches (10–23 mm) long and 79 to 87 mils of an inch (2–2.2 mm) broad, flat and flexible with a rounded or slightly notched tip, dark green to glaucous green above, often with a small patch of stomata near the tip, and with two silvery white stomatal bands on the underside.
The cones are erect, cylindric, 1.4 to 2.75 inches (3.5–7 cm) long (rarely to 3.2 in ) and 1.0 to 1.2 inches (2.5–3 cm) broad (rarely as broad as 1.5 in ) broad, dark purple, turning light brown when mature, with long reflexed green, yellow or pale purple bract scales, and often resinous. The cones disintegrate when mature at four to six months old to release the winged seeds.
The balsam fir variety Abies balsamea var. phanerolepis is regarded by some botanists as a natural hybrid between balsam fir and Fraser fir, as Abies × phanerolepis (Fernald) Liu.
Read more about this topic: Fraser Fir
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)