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Manual of the Southeastern Flora - Small
Copyright - UNC Press 1998, 1999. All Rights Reserved.


5. ABIES [Tourn.] Hill.

5. ABIES [Tourn.] Hill. Trees. Leaves distichously spreading on twig and branchlets: blades linear, not jointed to sterigmata. Pollen-sacs opening transversely or nearly so. Ovulate ament with conspicuous bracts. Cone erect cylindric. - A genus characteristic of high latitudes and mountains, with only 2 species in the eastern United States, 8 species in western North America and about a dozen in the Old World. - FIRS. - Some of the western species are valuable timber trees. Canada balsam is an exudation in the blisters on the trunk of A. balsamea.



1. A. fraseri (Pursh) Lindl. Tree becoming 25 mm. tall, the bark with balsam-yielding blisters: leaves 1-2 cm. long; blades shining above, glaucous beneath: staminate ament 5-8 mm. long: cone 4-5 cm. long; scales flagellate: bracts exserted, apiculate: seed 4-5 mm. long, the wing about as wide as long. - (SILVER-FIR. BALSAM FIR. SHE BALSAM. LASH-HORN. BLISTER-PINE.) - Acid swamps, slopes, and summits, Blue Ridge to Appalachian Plateau, N. C. and Tenn. to W. Va. - Spr. - A related northern species, A. balsamea., with included cone-bracts, may occur in NW N. C.
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