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Silver fir forest in the Susa Valley, Italy [Renzo Motta]. Bark and crown of a tree in Selva de Irati, Pyrenees, Spain [Jose Angel Campos Sandoval]. Illustration from Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé, Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz, 1885, Gera, Germany (Stüber 1999). Range of Abies alba (Atlas Florae Europaeae 1998). Many good photographs can be seen at Botany.cz.
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Abies albaCommon NamesEuropean or common silver fir (Silba 1986), abeto (Spanish). Taxonomic notesSyn. A. pardei Gaussen (Silba 1986). DescriptionTree up to 45-55 m. tall and 200-260 cm dbh, with a long clear bole surmounted by a pyramidal crown that becomes flat-topped with age. Bark smooth, gray, scaly, with resin blisters. Branches grooved, pale brown or dull gray with a blackish pubescence. Leaves: Shade foliage 2-ranked, spreading horizontally; foliage in sun more or less erect. Needle base twisted, apex notched or rounded; 15-30 × 1.5-2 mm; upper surface dark shiny green and grooved, usually lacking stomata; lower surface glaucous to whitish-green, keeled , with stomata in 5-8 ranks. Buds pale brown to reddish-brown, ovoid with an obtuse apex, sometimes resinous, diameter 8-11 mm, slightly pubescent. Pollen cones blue/violet/red, 1-3 cm long. Seed cones cylindrical, attenuate at the ends, 10-16 × 3-5 cm, green when young, turning red-brown; cone scales spathulate, finely pubescent with exserted, reflexed bracts extending about 2/3 the length of the scale. Seeds obovoid, reddish, winged, up to 2.5 cm long (Silba 1986). RangeFrance; Italy; Switzerland; Germany; Austria; Bulgaria; Ukraine: Karpaty Mts.; Byelorussia; at 300-1950 m. (Silba 1986, Vladimir Dinets e-mail 1998.01.02); Croatia. Big TreeHere are some reported large trees:
OldestA tree-ring chronology covering 411 years, presumably based on living tree material, was collected in 1952 in Bayerischer Wald, Germany (48.75° N, 13.00° E) by B. Becker (Data accessed at the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program Tree-Ring Data Search Page, 1999.02.24. URL: http://julius.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ftp-treering.html). DendrochronologyRolland (1993) did an exploratory study; the Bibliography of Dendrochronology provides some 290 additional citations (as of 2006), dating back to 1842, which is interesting (because dendrochronology was officially invented in about 1905) - unfortunately, there are none in English until 1956. EthnobotanyFoliar loppings of European silver fir in Czechoslovakia have yielded 1,380 tonnes/year of essential oils (Cermak and Penka 1979). ObservationsRemarksCitationsCermak, J. and M. Penka. 1979. An attempt to estimate potential production of volatile terpenes from the logging by-products of silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). Planta Medica 36: 3, 252. Farjon (1990) provides a detailed account, with illustrations. Rolland, C. 1993. Tree-ring and climate relationships for Abies alba in the internal Alps. Tree-Ring Bulletin 53:1-11. Available online at www.treeringsociety.org/TRBTRR/TRBvol53_1-11.pdf, accessed 2006.06.05. See AlsoPhotographs and species account at Botany.cz, accessed 2009.05.02.
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