Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

136 FAMILY HERBAL.
of Europe, but with us only kept in gardens. We
have no kind of the fir native : wnat is called the
Scotch fir, is not a fir, but a pine.
The fir-tree grows to a considerable height, and
with great regularity. The trunk is covered with
a rough and cracked bark, of a resinous smell ;
the
leaves are numerous, and stand very beautifully on
the branches. They stand in two rows, one opposite
to the other, and are oblong, but somewhat
and of
broad and flat. They are of a pale green,
a whitish hue underneath. The tree is hence called
the silver fir, and, from the disposition of the leaves,
the yew-leaved fir, for they grow as in the yewtree.
The fruit or cones stand upright ; in this kind,
they are long, thick, and brown.
The tops of this kind are great sweeteners of the
blood, and they work powerfully by urine. They
are best given in diet drinks, or brewed in the beer,
which is commonly drank.
Red Fir Tree, or Pitch Tree. Picea.
A tall tree, but not so regular
in its growth,
or in the disposition of its leaves, as the other. The
trunk is thick, the bark reddish, and the wood soft.
The branches are numerous, and they
stand irregularly.
The leaves are oblong, narrow, and
sharp-pointed ; and they do not grow in two even
rows, as in the other, but stand irregularly on
the twigs. The cones are long, slender, and hangdownwards.
The whole tree has a strong
resinous
smell.
The tops of this are boiled in diet drinks against
the scurvy as the other, but they make the liquor
much more nauseous ; and not at all better for the
intended purposes.
Pitch and tar arc the produce of the fir-tree, a?