| 1. Branch with flower-buds. |
| 2. Branch with sterile flowers. |
| 3. Sterile flowers. |
| 4. Spurred anther. |
| 5. Branch with fertile flowers. |
| 6. Ovuliferous scale with ovule, inner side. |
| 7. Fruiting branch. |
| 8. Cover-scales with seeds. |
| 9. Leaf. |
| 10. Cross-section of leaf. |
Abies balsamea, Mill.
Fir Balsam. Balsam. Fir.
Habitat and Range.—Rich, damp, cool woods, deep swamps, mountain slopes.
Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, northwest to the Great Bear Lake region.
Maine,—very generally distributed, ordinarily associated with white pine, black spruce, red spruce, and a few deciduous trees, growing at an altitude of 4500 feet upon Katahdin; New Hampshire,—common in upper Coos county and in the White mountains, where it climbs up to the alpine area; in the southern part of the state, in the extensive swamps around the sources of the Contoocook and Miller's rivers, it is the prevailing timber; Vermont,—common; not rare on mountain slopes and even summits; Massachusetts,—not uncommon on mountain slopes in the northwestern and central portions of the state, ranging above the red spruces upon Graylock; a few trees here and there in damp woods or cold swamps in the southern and eastern sections, where it has probably been accidentally introduced; Rhode Island and Connecticut,—not reported.
South to Pennsylvania and along high mountains to Virginia; west to Minnesota.
Habit.—A slender, handsome tree, the most symmetrical of the New England spruces, with a height of 25-60 feet, and a diameter of 1-2 feet at the ground, reduced to a shrub at high altitudes; branches in young trees usually in whorls; branchlets mostly opposite. The branches go out from the trunk at an angle varying to a marked degree even in trees of about the same size and apparent age; in some trees declined near the base, horizontal midway, ascending near the top; in others horizontal or ascending throughout; in others declining throughout like those of the Norway spruce; all these forms growing apparently under precisely the same conditions; head widest at the base and tapering regularly upward; foliage dark bright green; cones erect and conspicuous.
Bark.—Bark of trunk in old trees a variegated ashen gray, appearing smooth at a short distance, but often beset with fine scales, with one edge scarcely revolute, giving a ripply aspect; branches and young trees mottled or striate, greenish-brown and very smooth; branchlets from which the leaves have fallen marked with nearly circular leaf-scars; season's shoots pubescent; bark of trunk in all trees except the oldest with numerous blisters, containing the Canada balsam of commerce.
Winter Buds and Leaves.—Buds small, roundish, resinous, grouped on the leading shoots. Leaves scattered, spirally arranged in rows, at right angles to twig, or disposed in two ranks like the hemlock;*nbsp;½-1 inch long, dark glossy green on the upper surface, beneath silvery bluish-white, and traversed lengthwise by rows of minute dots, flat, narrowly linear; apex blunt, in young trees and upon vigorous shoots, often slightly but distinctly notched, or sometimes upon upper branches with a sharp, rigid point; sessile; aromatic.