acute or acuminate or rounded above, with slender tips shorter or longer than their scales. 8. A. magnifica (G). Winter-buds acuminate, with loosely imbricated scales; bracts of the cone-scales produced into elongated ridged flat tips many times longer than the obtusely pointed scales; leaves acuminate, dark yellow-green above, white below, similar on sterile and fertile branches. 9. A. venusta (G). 1. Abies Fraseri Poir. Balsam Fir. She Balsam. [Illustration: Fig. 52] Leaves obtusely short-pointed or occasionally slightly emarginate at apex, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, marked on the lower surface by wide bands of 8—12 rows of stomata, ½′ to nearly 1′ long, about 1/16′ wide. Flowers: male yellow tinged with red; female with scales rounded above, much broader than long and shorter than their oblong pale yellow-green bracts rounded at the broad apex terminating in a slender elongated tip. Fruit oblong-ovoid or nearly oval, rounded at the somewhat narrowed apex, dark purple, puberulous, about 2½′ long, with scales twice as wide as long, at maturity nearly half covered by their pale yellow-green reflexed bracts; seeds ⅛′ long, with dark lustrous wings much expanded and very oblique at apex. A tree, usually 30°—40° and rarely 70° high, with a trunk occasionally 2½° in diameter, and rather rigid branches forming an open symmetrical pyramid and often disappearing early from the lower part of the trunk, and stout branchlets pubescent for three or four years, pale yellow-brown during their first season, becoming dark reddish brown often tinged with purple, and obtuse orange-brown winter-buds. Bark ¼′—½′ thick, covered with thin closely appressed bright cinnamon-red scales, generally becoming gray on old trees. Wood light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, pale brown, with nearly white sapwood; occasionally manufactured into lumber. Distribution: Appalachian Mountains; Cheat Mountain, near Cheat Bridge, Randolph County, West Virginia, and from southwestern Virginia to western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, often forming forests of considerable extent at elevations between 4000° and 6000° above the sea-level. Occasionally planted in the parks and gardens of the northern states and of Europe, but short-lived in cultivation and of little value as an ornamental tree. 2. Abies balsamea Mill. Balsam Fir. [Illustration: Fig. 53]