Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/232

222 F I R F I R lie died at paintings is perhaps the Surrender of Briseis. Gottingen, September 10, 1821. FIR, the name originally given by our Scandinavian forefathers to the Scotch pine (P uius sylvestris), is at present not unfrequently employed as a general term for the whole of the true Conifers (Abietince) ; but. in a more exact sense, it has been transferred to the "spruce" and " silver firs/ the genera Abies and Picea of most modern botanists. The firs are distinguished from the pines and larches by having their needle-like leaves placed singly on the shoots, instead of growing in clusters from a sheath or abortive branch. Their cones are composed of thin, rounded, closely-imbricated scales, furnished in some species with bracts springing from the base. The trees have usually a straight trunk, and a tendency to a conical or pyramidal growth, throwing out each year a more or less regular whorl of branches from the foot of the leading shoot, while the buds of the lateral boughs extend horizontally. In the Spruce Firs (Abies), the cones are pendent when mature and their scales persistent ; the leaves are arranged all round the shoots, though the lower ones are sometimes directed laterally. In the sub-genus Picea, the Silver Firs, the cones are erect, and their scales drop off when the seed ripens; the leaves are placed in distinct rows on each side of the shoot. The most important of the firs, in an economic sense, is the Norway Spruce (Abies excelsa), so well known in British plantations, though rarely attaining there the gigantic height and grandeur of form it often displays in its native woods. Under favourable circumstances of growth it is a lofty tree, with a nearly straight, tapering trunk, throwing Fro. 1. Norway Spruce (Alrits exceha). Male flowers. out in somewhat irregular whorls its wide-spreading branches, densely clothed with dark, clear green foliage. The boughs and their side-branches, as they increase in length, have a tendency to droop, the lower tier, even in large trees, often sweeping the ground, a habit that, with the jagged sprays, and broad, shadowy, wave-like foliage- masses, gives a peculiarly graceful and picturesque aspect to the Norway spruce. The slender, sharp, slightly curved leaves are scattered thickly around the shoots : the upper ones pressed towards the stem, and the lower directed side ways, so as to give a somewhat flattened appearance to the individual sprays. The elongated, cylindrical cones grow chiefly at the ends of the upper branches ; they are purplish at first, but become afterwards green, and eventually light brown ; their scales are slightly toothed at the extremity; they ripen in the autumn, but seldom discharge their seeds until the following spring. The tree is very widely distributed, growing abundantly on most of the mountain ranges of northern and central Europe; while in Asia it occurs at least as far east as the Lena, and in latitude extends from the Altaic ranges to beyond the Arctic circle. On the Swiss Alps it is one of the most prevalent and striking of the forest trees, its FIG. 2. Norway Spruce (Abies exfelsa). Cones; scale with seeds. dark evergreen foliage often standing out in strong contrast to the snowy ridges and glaciers beyond. In the lower districts of Sweden it is the predominant tree in most of the great forests that spread over so large a portion of that- country. In Norway it constitutes a considerable part ot the dense woods of the southern dales, flourishing, accord ing to Schiibeler, on the mountain slopes up to an altitude of from 2800 to 3100 feet, and clothing the shores of some of the fjords to the water s edge ; in the higher regions it is generally mingled with the pine. Less abundant on the western side of the fjelds, it again forms woods in Nord- land, extending in the neighbourhood of the coast nearly to the 67th parallel; but it is, in that arctic climate, rarely met with at a greater elevation than 800 feet above the sea, though in Swedish Lapland it is found on the slope of the Sulitelma as high as 1200 feet, its upper limit being everywhere lower than that of the pine. In all the Scandinavian countries it is known as the Gran or G rann. Great tracts of low country along the southern shores of the Baltic and in northern Russia are covered with forests of spruce. It everywhere shows a preference for a moist but well-drained soil, and never attains its full stature or luxuriance of growth upon arid ground, whether on plain or mountain a peculiarity that should be remembered by the planter. In a favourable soil and open situation it becomes the tallest and one of the stateliest of European trees, rising sometimes to a height of from 150 to 170 feet, the trunk attaining a diameter of from 5 to 6 feet at the base. But when it grows in dense woods, where the lower branches decay and drop off early, only a small head of foliage remaining at the tapering summit, its stem, though frequently of great height, is rarely more than 1 or 2 feet