Note 289 — Chapter III · (continued 3)

This fir is remarkable for its tendency to cicatrize or heal over its stumps, a property which it possesses in common with some other firs, the maritime pine, and the European larch. When these trees grow in thick clumps, their roots are apt to unite by a species of natural grafting, and if one of them be felled, although its own proper rootlets die, the stump may continue, sometimes for a century, to receive nourishment from the radicles of the surrounding trees, and a dome of wood and bark of considerable thickness be formed over it. The cicatrization is, however, only apparent, for the entire stump, except the outside ring of annual growth, soon dies, and even decays within its covering, without sending out new shoots.