‘ 5 i Hu! ri) eR ay Cornell University Sthaca, Nem Pork COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE LIBRARY Cornell aia Library NP 2100.C72 1920 wii ers and their characteristic ii fine CONIFERS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS CONIFERS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS BY CHARLES COLTMAN-ROGERS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 PREFATORY Drat the trees, says I, to be sewer I haates ’em, my lass, For we puts the muck o’ the land, an’ they sucks the muck fro’ the grass, Tennyson, The Village Wife. THERE are several inducements that have prompted me to put together this little summarized table of the chief characteristics of Conifers. In the first place I was instigated to do so for my own personal edi- fication. I found that, unless you were perpetually in their midst, the various differences and char- acteristics of trees were not quite so reproducible on occasions as could be wished, and that often when the moment came, the man, and his stores of ready wit, were not forthcoming. Their little idiosyn- crasies, sometimes even their very name, with which in calmer moments you were perfectly acquainted, had an evasive way of slipping both your mental and vocal efforts. Sometimes these lapses of memoria technica would be followed by a little door- step wit, or some such method of recognition, of a mere momentary nature, and afterwards made good after a consultation in an up-to-date library, populous with arboricultural works. If you are not out for effect, and effect with you is not a primary consideration, why not let written memoranda do some of the carrying trade of the intelligence department? You may lay yourself open to the challenge that your hat (or in this case your notebook) contains more than your head, a suggestion from the audience that once a young Vv vi PREFATORY budding orator was constrained to overhear, when observed to be poring a little too attentively over the notes in his hat lining. But be that as it may, we think with those who think it’s better to recall from notes, than never to recall at all. I have the key part of this book transcribed in pocket form. It has been an added interest to me, ' as a visitant to Kew, or a pedestrian in Pinetums, to have a reference book, something in the shape of a Ready Recognizer, at hand to verify conjectures; and in the same way, and under similar circumstances, I hope this idea may be found capable of being car- ried out by others, and that it may prove of the same use as it has been to me on such a visit. You cannot —it is too heavy a strain—stow,away in the recesses of your coat pocket volumes of Frees of Great Britain (Elwes and Henry). On such occasions, Bean (Trees and Shrubs), though smaller, would be an uncarry- able load; Veitch’s Book of Conifers a prohibitive encumbrance; Clinton Baker’s volumes, if nicely bound, a sheer impossibility. If you are able to store up all their definitions in your head, and out- pour them at will at the psychological moment, all well and good; there would be no need of a pocket edition of ‘‘ What’s what in Conifers,’”’ or any other such cold comforts of the kind, and which abridged editions are wont to confer. It is for those not able to accomplish this kind of carrying trade to their own satisfaction that I plead justification for this effort— and fearlessly I own—collected from the writings of those at whose feet I would sit, and gladly have sat, and among them are some 'who shall be nameless, but whom I shall ever [deem it a privilege to have known in the flesh.. I make no apology for repro- ducing, even in exact.words, on occasions throughout these Identifying Tables, the written. writings of authors of mighty works and of monumental fame.. PREFATORY vii The pursuit of every study must have a beginning, and every wandering quest its inspiration. If this rudimentary effort should perchance implant a love anywhere of Tree Study, depend upon it the victim of the craze will not rest until he has acquired and ransacked the great works of past masters of the art. But be it remembered, a Greek scholar does not commence his studies with Plato. Again, any apology is discounted by the fact that all distinguished and exhaustive writers upon such subjects, and cognate subjects, go back to the inves- tigation of their predecessors in the shades. They work on the land prepared, and add a little to its fertility each time they plunge their spade. Our object is far more lowly; it is to make the well- turned soil more friable, a little more easy to work. Loudon wrote exhaustively up to date, but his date became out of date, and some of the works of to-day, complete and exhaustive as they are, will become out of date in their turn, and have to be written up to time. Chinese plants introduced by Wilson and Forrest will have grown up and awakened new in- terests. Further observations will have been made of them, and they will call forth a new writer to portray them, to sing their merits, or sound their requiem. The great writers of to-day will in their turn become the predecessors in the shades, and new scribes will arise to carry still farther forward the mighty tasks of investigation they so ably in their day chronicled. There’s a running truth in the lines of Rudyard Kipling, which underlies the action of many authorities of many ’ologies : It all comes out of the books I read, It all goes into,the books I write, I amone who unhesitatingly and unrepentantly pleads guilty to this indictment. viii PREFATORY If we have borrowed their thunder, let them be assured that it is only with the hope that an echo of its reverberation may reach those at a distance, and those who, had they been brought nearer to its sound, might have been awed by its big intensity of volume, or mentally distracted by the polyglot and polysyllabic expressions these subjects demand. While paying due homage to all these illustrious extenders of a deep knowledge, and in no way wishing to minimize the deep obligations that we owe them, we read that it has been truly said, that when a book is a large one, the majority of its readers become only acquainted with it by extracts and abstracts. Stupendous bulk is forbidding to those whose space of time allotted to them by reason of other duties in life is limited to the short-cut route to a port of lesser understanding. Piles of pages, and learned dissertation in a language only half understood, appal them, and they retire from the charge dis- couraged. They clamour for a more unperplexing catechism. Give them the abridgment process, wherefrom they can perchance see a little daylight peeping through the chinks of less thickened walls, and maybe they return to the charge, even to the time when they feel empowered to renew battle against the very forces that at first so overwhelm- ingly discomfited them. There are others we hope to help. We refer to those upon whom but limited chances of travel are bestowed, whose walks in life are far removed from recurring opportunity of visiting those scenes where object- lessons can be viewed at leisure. The fascinations of Kew are to them a far cry, or arare jaunt in the midst of a busy life. The glories of our best-stocked Pinetums are, again, to them often an unblessed vision altogether, or at most a breve gaudium upon a PREFATORY ix rare holiday. Various other causes militate against such expeditions—want of leisure, lack of where- withal, and yet one more still cogent reason, brevity ‘of life. ‘“‘ Of making books,’’ said the preacher, ‘‘ there is no end,” and of hunting up trees, say we, there is no finality. A survey from China to Peru, if carried out in entirety, would not exhaust the question. Then, again, it should be emphasized that nothing is written here with any remote idea of aiding the expert ; our sense of proportion is far too acutely alive to nourish for a minute such a thought. The book is addressed only to those who take up such subjects more in the light of a secondary or subsidiary accom- plishment. To the few only is it given to pursue to the core any pet scheme of life. The majority have. to spend a larger proportion of their time upon earth in following up duties that give them rather less than great abstract pleasure. There are many, to employ university metaphor, who though they are debarred by the perversities of fate from aiming at a class in the Honours school, may be desirous of matriculating in the subject, or perchance even obtaining a éestamur in the pass examination tests. One thing, we are told, leads to another, and if this little effort on the behalf of arboriculture induces any to go farther in Altiora Peto spirit, and to try to scale the more Olympian heights of a fascinating subject, the labour will not have been in vain, and the labourer’s light task more than amply recom- pensed. CONTENTS I, PINES . . . ° ° ° ° II, ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS. ° ° . III. PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES . ° ° Iv. TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS . ° Vv. CYPRESSES AND JUNIPERS ° . . VI. TAXODINEZE AND ARAUCARINEZ e . VII. TAXACEZ . . . . . . IDENTIFYING TABLES . . . . . GLOSSARY OR LIST OF WORDS USED REQUIRING EXPLANATION . . . : 2 . INDEX. . . % : . ‘ 3 : xi PAGE 66 102 124 155 196 237 263 307 321 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE DIFFERENCE OF SHAPE IN APEX OF LEAF OF SILVER FIRS . 68 DIFFERENT SURFACE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRANCHLETS OF SILVER FIRS . ‘ : . 3 ‘ . facing 70 DIFFERENCES OF SHAPE IN TRANSVERSE SECTION (MAGNI- FIED) AS BETWEEN THE FOUR-SIDED AND FLAT (OR TWO- SIDED) LEAVES OF SILVER FIRS AND SPRUCE . facing 104 DIFFERENCES IN THE CONE OR STROBILE STRUCTURE OF VARIOUS SPECIES OF THE CUPRESSINEZ TRIBE OF TREES: (a) C. SEMPERVIRENS, C. TORULOSA, C. MACRO- CARPA : e : . = - facing 158 (6) CHAMZCYPARIS LAWSONIANA, PISIFERA, AND NOOTKATENSIS ; THUYAS ORIENTALIS, OCCIDEN- TALIS, AND GIGANTEA (OR PLICATA) . - facing 158 (c) LIBOCEDRUS DECURRENS, THUJOPSIS DOLA- BRATA . : ; 7 . 5 . facing 159 DIFFERENCES IN SHAPE OF THE FRUIT OF THE PRUMNOPITYS ELEGANS, CEPHALOTAXUS FORTUNEI, AND PODOCARPUS . 239 xiii TREES I PINES (OF THE NATURAL ORDER OF CONIFERZA:, oF THE FAMILY PINACE, oF THE TRIBE ABIETINE, OF THE SUB-TRIBE PINE) We paused amid the pines that stood, The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude As serpents interlaced. SHELLEY, The Pine Forest, Tue division of Pines into the descriptions of soft and hard—or Pitch, as Prof. Sargent of American fame differentiates them—presents rather a deeper dip into the mysteries of the subject than most are desirous of fathoming. Although it is a matter of critical import ‘to the producer, seller, or buyer of timber, and to the utilitarian world at large, these wood-structure distinctions cannot be expected to arouse the same interest among those unblest with broad acres, or unaffected by trade interests, nor, for the matter of that, among the well-filled ranks of those who are possessed of no sky-high botanical aspirations, but are only prompted, in Wanderlust moments, by a simple-minded desire to better their acquaintance with the works of Nature, and by quiet contemplation to regain a soul lost in the turmoil of city occupation. I 2 PINES We have explained the salient differences of these two types of Pine trees in our definition of botanical terms for our readers, and will leave it at their dis- posal, that those who run may read, or those who are not that way inclined may skip. The easily acquired mastery of the number of leaves or needles in a bundle or cluster obtained is the first rung on the ladder of knowledge on which to secure a footing. That humble position reached, the first awakening into the mysteries of a differentiation of Pines has begun. These groups of leaves, it will be noticed, are held together:at their base by a wrapper-looking arrangement, varying in length and habit, and which in form and general appearance bears certain resemblance to those strips of cloth that encase the ‘legs of khaki-clad warriors, and are known as puttees. An accurate observance of this little binding, which is termed, in the phraseology of the cult, a leaf sheath, or leaf scale, comes in on occasions opportunely, and helps to dispel doubts of identity. Sometimes it is persistent, at other times deciduous; occasionally, in the case of the so-called Fox-tail Pines, P. Balfouriana and P. Aristata, and the members of the Cembroides group, it splits into shreds and forms itself, with its reflexed remnants, torn (so to speak) into ribands, into a rosette-shaped appearance. One inestimable boon has been con- ‘ferred by Nature upon those (with whom we should always be in sympathy) who move slowly along the more stony path of hard work in their start upon. any quest, and it is this, that no mathematical brain-worrying is incurred in the task of counting these leaves in a bundle. Indeed, should there be among us that unbrightened star of an age that seems to have passed, who has only learned to cipher upon his fingers, the task is rendered of easy mani- pulation even to him, and for this reason, that the LEAVES AND BUDS 3 number of leaves to be found in a bunch is bounded by a count of fingers and thumb found on the hand of normal man. To put it still more simply—if it requires simplifying—the number of leaves per bundle range, like Nature’s digits, from one to five, and the most common, indigenous, and beautiful of our Pines, the so-called Scots Pine—and take heed, all who talk names, that, in deference to your fellow countrymen north of the Tweed, you do not speak of it as Scotch, neither of them, nor of their Pines as Scotch, but always Scots—which contains two in a bundle, gives the beginner his first intuition upon the problems of an absorbing subject. This counting of leaves by no means exhausts the Alpha and Omega of the art, it only starts us on a long journey, a veri- table Via Dolorosa of difficulties. We submit a few points for observation of their component parts that are quite within the scope of the more unversed, and necessitate no deep dive into botanical depths. Leaves.—The number in a bundle. The length of the leaf. The length of the little covering which encases the base of the leaf, and which is called the basal sheath, and whether that sheath remains (persistent) or drops off (deciduous) or tears away (rosette-shape, e.g. Pinus Aristata, Balfouriana, and Cembroides Group). The margins of the leaves, whether serrulate (jagged), or entire (smooth). N.B.—In point of fact all Pines are serrulate more or less except these: the Flexilis, Pumila, and Albi- caulis, the Aristata and Balfouriana; and of these the second and third mentioned are practically non- existent in Great Britain. This characteristic is one for the microscope to solve. Buds.—Their shape, whether resinous or non- resinous. As an object-lesson at hand to all, the buds of the Scots Pine are resinous, those of the Common Spruce non-resinous. 2 4 PINES Cones.—Shape, size, their habits; whether per- sistent, deciduous, dehiscent (falling to pieces), whether erect or pendulous, shape of scales, length of stalk, or whether stalkless or sessile (very shortly stalked). We allude to this point further on.’ Resin Canals.—This is a subject for the magnify- ing glasses at home rather than the pedestrian abroad, and is explained in the glossary: Shoots.—Their colour, whether pubescent (downy) or glabrous (smooth); this can be seen with the naked eye, but more adequately with a lens. Stems.—This is a matter of experience, and it is difficult to lay down a rule upon points to be observed. Trunks vary in different localities, and at different ages. Flowers.—All Conifers are moncecious (having male and female flowers on the same tree), except Fitzroya and Araucaria, which are irregular, some- times moncecious, sometimes dicecious. Floral structure of Pines, Silver Firs, and Spruce. The male flowers are in clusters near the ends of previous year’s shoots; the female (ovuliferous) solitary, or in clusters, on ends of the preceding year’s shoots. How they carry their leaves from their branchlets is often a sign-manual of great significance. When they are uncompromisingly pendulous, as the Pinus Excelsa (par excellence), the Weymouth, the Armandi, etc., or when they are uncompromisingly vertically situate, of which style the Fox-tail Pines are the champion exponents, the road to recognition is smoothed. To exemplify by homely illustration: the pendulous appearance resembles the natural fall of a horse’s mane from the crest of his neck, while the vertical style can be likened to the more un- natural state produced by hogging that article; or if we were to draw a simile from a more remote time in equine history, we should say that one resembled CONES 5 the tail-lock fringe, and the other the upright mane of the specimens of a prehistoric age represented by Prjevalsky’s ponies, from the Gobi desert of Siberia. Many of them are not of sufficiently pronounced habits either way to give our identifying faculties a little first aid in their directions. We must seek. inspiration elsewhere. Of the fifty-two different species (without counting what are classed as varieties) as enumerated by Elwes and Henry, twenty of these have five leaves in a bundle. We have not so far mentioned perhaps the most complete of all clues to identification—we allude to the cones: These fruits of coniferous trees give a maximum of information for a minimum of study. Unfortunately they are not always so forthcoming as they might be; more often, to put it mildly, very much the contrary. To make a collection of them is an interesting pursuit, and they act as a useful reminder on many an identification question. This perhaps; is a remark that it may be said goes without saying, but at the same time it is not a task accom- plished without some doing. Perhaps few cones are obtained with more difficulty than those on the commonest of trees in our midst, the Silver Fir (Abies Pectinata). In the first place these cones have a way of appearing only on the topmost height of what is generally the highest tree in the district. In the second place they have a way of dehiscing and falling to pieces at the precise moment you think you can secure them. It is a task that cals for a towering ammbition on the part of someone concerned, and usually for a forthcoming coin of the realm to the simian acrobat who performs the crowning feat and gathers the forbidden fruits. These difficulties surmounted, and the psychological 6 PINES moment taken advantage of, you can fill a cart with them. Some, on the other hand, are easily obtained. In the case of the trees that produce cones of the asymmetrical and persistent type, the difficulties of the collector diminish. Where the tree is, there also are the cones, generally as plentiful. on the stems as blackberries—when they live up to their reputation— in October. Other types with other habits, the Nut Pines and the Albicaulis perhaps in particular, have devastating enemies to contend with, and are only obtained with greatest difficulty upon this side of the water, and then only after having been conveyed overseas from the limited supply on the other side. Children from village schools—and at times other bipeds of more adult experience—squirrels in England, chipmunks in America, all these, for various reasons, upon various trees wage a predatory warfare, and against their fruit production. With the represen- tatives of the higher creation, it is the rare sight of, say, a Coulteri cone in all its monstrous proportions that prompts the appropriating impulse. ‘With the representatives of the lower creation, it is the dainty delights of the edible inside that attract their greed. We will not compare further the strength of the temptations that assail, or the motives that move these two classes of voracious sinners against the statute-made laws that define the difference between meum and tuum (mine and yours). The writer knows of many a whacking specimen of Coulteri cone that adorns the mantelpieces of homes located in the environment of theix®production. Of the Sabiniana and Ayacahuite doubtless the same story could be told. The Lambertiana; or Sugar Pine, is another which produces giant specimens, but it seldom cones in England, and when it does, hardly comes up to CONE SCALES, SEEDS, ETC. 7 the expectation of it formed from American descrip- tions and experiences. of specimens brought from their endemic home in California. With all these, and perhaps with others, the early-bird habit stands in good stead to the collector. When the collector has satiated his Curiosity upon the outward and visible signs, if he is possessed of the true spirit, and vital spark of the inquiring mind, he will not rest content until he has pulled his specimen to pieces, looked at it by bits, and examined every detail of its external and internal economy. He can then make minute observations and mental notes—if his enthusiasm still carries him onward— of the shape and size of each scale, the situation and number of seeds and wings, the length of stalk, of cone; the configuration of the margin of these scales, whether they have entire, unbroken margins, or whether these same margins have a frayed, jagged or erose appearance—all three meaning much the same thing; or again, whether the scales are pointed, double pointed, or rounded. In the case of the Common Spruce, all three variations are said to occur. A knowledge of the shape of these scales adds cubits to the intellectual stature of the student of these subjects, and moreover without calling upon any profound botanical knowledge. This solid fact remains, not perhaps a very worthy one, and only adduced as a labour-saving apparatus, that the sight of a familiar cone at foot has saved many a question- ing glance upward, and brought forth a needy answer to the less-equipped inquirer. 8 PINES STROBI GROUP You may as well forbid the mountain Pines, To wag their high tops, and to make a noise, When they are fretted with the gusts of Heaven, SHAKESPEARE, Srrop1 Group oF Pines: P. Excess, PEuKE, AYACAHUITE, BUONAPARTEA, LAMBERTIANA, MonTIcoLa, STROBUS, PARVIFLORA The first group of the Quinze—or five-leaves-in-a- bundle Pines—take their group name from the P. Strobus, an individual member of the group, that we know more familiarly as the Weymouth Pine. This P. Strobus owes the origin of its name to a Pine encountered by Pliny the Elder of Pompeian and eruptive Vesuvius fame. We learn from the original authority of his own pages (in his work< entitled Naturalis Historia) that Pliny godfathered sur- nominally a Pine to which he gave the name Strobus. What tree precisely the renowned naturalist and historian had in mind when he bestowed the title there is neither jot nor tittle of evidence extant to give us information. At this distant date we take it that anyone who so wishes may be allowed to picture for himself, without consulting further any modern authority, his own conception of the tree that Pliny was thinking about, so long as that idea coincides with the idea of the original description. We know—or, to put it more correctly, we have learnt that the Greek word orpéfos signifies a top, so we have to conclude that the tree named recalled to the mental vision of this great Roman, Caius Plinius Secundus (to give him his name in full), the material outline of the fashionable top of his day. Many kinds of tops at the suggestion of this simile at once flit before our half-forgotten memories of an ORIGIN OF NAME STROBUS 9 earlier day. We can recall peg-tops, whipping-tops, and humming-tops, and probably there are many more revolving tops than these, whose existence has escaped our memories. What was the shape of a standardized Roman top in the Augustan Era it would be presumptuous to hazard opinion upon; but if it was more or less the same sort of top as its Great Britain representative of the Victorian Era— that is to say, a sort of top-heavy-shaped object, sometimes answering the description of pear-shaped, at others and by others described, as an inverted conoid, with a weighty head supported by a slender peg— there would, I imagine, among Mediterranean Pines be claimants in number for the honour of a name con- ferred by such a celebrity, since many a Pine in those regions assumes a shape consonant with this rather discursive description. Personally, I should have looked to the P. Pinea to turn up the winner among all other competitors. Whether it is an ascertained truism that Pliny’s Strobus and Linnzus’s Weymbuth Pine are one and the same is a point of evidence that we do not believe even the great Swede himself, with all his glory, and founder of the Linnean Society, who christened it or rechristened it some 1700 years and more after Pliny’s day, could conscientiously have sworn affidavit upon. But why cavil at a name that is both brief and easily spelt, and so long as it distin- guishes, and creates no confusion of mind? There is a provoking similitude both of cones and leaves in the construction of four at least of this group (P. Excelsa, Peuke, Monticola, and Strobus), which calls for a strained docility on thé part of the ordinary student. The points of difference in some cases are so slight that they belong rather to that class of subtle intricacies that many do not care to tackle. Those there are who only can, or only ‘Io PINES care to, snatch occasional moments from the many counter-attractions of a country-spent life, from sports.and games of bandied balls, and not only from such pursuits as are of a more pleasurable nature, but also from those inglorious—because they who follow them are not glory seekers—and accumulating duties of county civic life, and they in number are many ; while those who can find the time to devote a life or even a decade of life to the closer study of one subject, and make of it an absorbing and pet distraction, are few, very few. This must be our apology for venturing on an exposition of a few points, and their family differences. In two of them, namely P. Excelsa and P. Strobus, let it be noted the leaves are arranged after the pendulous or flowing-mane fashion, while the other two, P. Peuke and Monticola, follow the vertical or hogged-mane type. These two modes of leaf habit (commented on previously) put up such a different show that the P. Excelsa and P. Strobus ought to be discriminated from the P. Peuke and P. Monticola at a glance, and divided as surely as sheep were ever divided from goats by the eye of practised shepherd. This point of difference of appearance only carries us part of the way. It offers no suggestions as to how we are to pick up the Excelsa from the Strobus, or, to give them their English names, the Bhotan from the Weymouth. As these two trees happen to be pre- cisely the two Pines that those ‘‘ who go to and fro in the earth and wander up and down it ”’ are more constantly encountering perhaps than any other of its imported species, it is quite worth while calling a little attention to some of their phases and forms. P. Excelsa is the larger edition of the two all round: It has longer cones, leaves, and basal sheaths; its bark is more fissured than the smoother grey-barked Weymouth. But a larger and a smaller edition, when WEYMOUTH PINE 1I viewed separately, are not always the simplest of sights to arrive at an opinion upon. Let us take, for purpose of illustration, the case of resembling brothers. Smith Minor and Smith Major, in the absence of one or the other, are not always objects to measure accurately at a glance by those outside the more. immediate family circle. Smith Major may be in tails, and Smith Minor only in jackets, but the Minor in spite of this is often as tall as the Major, and, deprived of distinguishing sartorial adjuncts, may be easily mistaken for his brother. In music sometimes the original or first subject resolves into the dominant, and at other times into the sub- dominant, and so, to pursue the musical metaphor into the company of the brothers, the major may become the sub-dominant, or equally the dominant may revert into the minor. To follow up these upsetting effects upon the habits of trees: the length and leaf of cone, subject to the mysterious property of air, climate, and soil, often vary so much that the greater may easily appear to be the lesser, or the lesser to be taken for the. greater. There may be, and there are, other minute differences, stomata, evanescent pubescence, and even shape of leaf, between these two, but they are all infinitesimally small and microscopic. The taper- ing point of the Weymouth Pine cone, to the more unenlightened amateur, tells its story of identity perhaps with more regularity and outstanding clear- ness than any other symptom of difference, perhaps even more so than the difference of length of leaf, which is considerable, though inclined often to be rather variable. We will call short attention to a few points of similarity of cones that these four members of the Strobi group present. Although it may not help much to recognize them one from the other, it will 12 PINES help to distinguish them from those belonging to other groups of Pines. They are all longer than they are broad. They are all cylindric, or sub-cylindric in shape. They are all erect when growing, and pendulous eventually. Their scales all have thin margins, and finish off with umbos. They are very variable in size on all four, but as a rule P. Excelsa has the longest cone, and P. Strobus, which represents the eastern side of America, the shortest; P. Monticola, which represents the West Pacific slopes and Rocky Mountain regions, is the half-way house between the two in the matter of size of cone, while P. Peuke represents the biggest girth measurement of the clique. Further, the scales of P. Peuke are striated (marked with channelled stripes and streaks), and exude resin freely, so also does the P. Strobus, but not so profusely. Paren- thetically we might add that this is a little untidy habit they all four have a propensity to indulge in. The description of the P. Strobus cone, as having a pointed apex and tapering in shape, we have alluded to, and as cones are to be found in plenty under both, this ought to be a help in distinguishing it from the P. Excelsa cone. Cloud-piercing Pine Trees nod- their troubled heads, WorpswortTH. AyacaHuItTE, LAMBERTIANA.—As the P. Lamber- tiana, the Sugar Pine of California, is the mightiest in height among Pine trees, it claims to deserve the Homeric epithet of cloud-piercing above all others that we have made mention of. If cones would always put in an appearance when wanted, it would considerably add to the convenience of the identifier. These two members of the Strobi Group carry giants in the shape of cones. The ‘Lambertiana has only one rival in the championship, PINUS EXCELSA 13 and if the Coulteri carries off the welter-weight prize, the Lambertiana outpaces its rival in the long-dis- tance stakes, while the Ayacahuite is a close runner up. The cone of the P. Lambertiana in shape takes after the shell case of a 6-inch gun, and that of the P. Coulteri and P. Ayacahuite follow more after the family figure of the pumpkin. When we come to a comparison of leaf appearance, as between the Excelsa and Ayacahuite, we are approaching another of those Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee differences that seem to be created to perplex. But as eventually it was generally admitted by posterity that in reality a great gulf, in a matter of prowess, separated the two rivals, Handel and - Bononcini, who inspired Dr. Byrom’s rhyme, Strange all this difference should be, ’"Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee, so does one very marked difference, luckily for us, in quest of simple clues, divide in character unmis- takably these two trees. While the Excelsa twigs are smooth as marble, those of the Ayacahuite—and it can be easily seen—are densely covered with tufts and reddish-brown down or pubescence. While the P. Excelsa hails from the Himalayas, the Ayacahuite and its name come from that Paradise of Pines the Mexican territory. To the question, who gave it this name, the answer is the aboriginals of that country, and the natives of a country who perhaps, brought up on the, slopes of Popocatepetl, had learnt to love the music of high-sounding names. To the question as to what this name means, our only reply must be that as our liege lords of tree lore have failed to inform us, no answer can be forthcoming here; and if still further pressed upon the subject of its phonetic pronunciation, our answer would be the same. We note that Sargent in his manual of 14 PINES North American trees refers to what has been called by others the Colorado variety of Ayacahuite, a tree growing on higher slopes, and with the natural resultant of sporting shorter leaves and smaller cones, as the P. Strobiformis. It seems rather a dull performance to give a Greco-Roman name to such a stranger, and to a variety of a tree that enjoys such a crisp-sounding vernacular appellation of its own. With the remark that the Lambertiana carries the hall-mark of its identity in the grassy green colour of its leaves, and that the Buonapartea or Veitchii, a variety of the Ayacahuite, elects to have its cone scales incurved rather reflexed to assert an indepen- dence, we approach towards the end of our dis- sertation on the subject of these white, soft-wood Pines, the Strobi Group. To sum up some points of difference : the P. Ayaca- huite must be dissociated from the P. Excelsa by the conspicuous down it exhibits on the twigs, a symptom in marked contrast to the smooth surface noticeable on P. Excelsa branchlets. From the Pinus Strobus it can be identified by its longer leaves and dense pubescence. We might also notice that whereas there is every probability of an abundance of cones in the vicinity of the Weymouth, the mighty cone of the Ayacahuite is still a rare sight, with us. For a prompt recognition of the Lambertiana, the colour-test observance should be relied- on. The bright yellow-grass-green hue of its leaves is quite unlike any. other colour scheme of the group. Before leaving the subject of the Ayacahuite, there is still another Pine, the P. Armandi, that may easily delude the more unsophisticated, in the absence of cone clue, into the belief.that he is sampling an Ayacahuite. It is written down as not belonging to P. PARVIFLORA 15 this group, but to that of the Cembre. By its leaves, pendulous, bent, and spreading, like several of the Strobi Group, it seems to clamour at their gates for admission. It has, so far as we can see, been sternly. denied admittance on account of the shape of the cones it carries. They are thicker, it is true, than most of the Strobi, and for the matter of that longer than most of the Cembre. The Strobi Group, it must be concluded, appears to be very sensi- tive on this point, and rather pride themselves on this slender cone habit. We discuss the Armandi farther on, where its name is to be found under the egis of its family group the Cembre. P. PARVIFLORA.—We have now only the P. Parvi- flora of the Strobi Group to deal with. How it con- trived to obtain an entry into this exclusive family circle is a matter of wonder to the less deeply initiated. Although we may amuse ourselves by carping at the position it takes up generically, it must be clearly understood that we have nothing to urge against it for the position it takes up geo- graphically ; on the contrary it is a tree that with general acceptance is looked upon as decorative, and peculiarly suited to many sites. The tree distinctly has its charms, but among the other members of the Strobi it looks as a parvenu in their midst. It is a short-leaved, short-coned, with short sessile stalks (the reverse of a Strobi characteristic), and short-grown specimen by the side of its more elon- gated fellow tribesmen in every phase. Although its presence is rather apologised for by those who have placed it there, and looked rather more carefully into the details of its passport than we are able to— although it is rather hinted even there that it is to be looked upon more in the light of a missing link between the Strobi and Cembrae—the fact cannot be 16 PINES forgotten that it started life with the reputation of the Cembra’s double. The number of cones at an early age it carries of sometimes three or four mounted to face around, like guns in a barbette, its vertical short leaves, showing the white stomata so remarkably that its leaves at a short distance appear to be streaked with silver threads among the green, and shaped after the manner of a Fox-brush Pine—all these traits conspire to assist identification, and again, lest we forget, it has been assigned to the Strobi Group, from where no ejectment process can remove it. It has adopted as a motto for its family abiding- place the words attributed to Marshal MacMahon in the Crimean Redan, “‘ J’y suis, j’y reste ’ ” (Here I am, here I stay). GROUP OF CEMBRE, OR STONE PINES O sovran Blanc ! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly, but thou, most awful form, Risest from forth thy silent sea of Pines. | §, T, Corerrper, Hymn in The Vale of Chamounix, P, Cemspra, P. Korarensis, P. ARMANDI, P. Pumina, P, FLexitis, P. ALBICAULIS The Cembre are a group of some half-dozen moun- tain-bred (Alpine and elsewhere), Pines, that are chiefly characterized by bearing cones whose breadth is greater—or, to put it more correctly, whose breadth is inclined to be greater, as great, or nearly as great as their length. They take their name presumably from the name of a town in the Tyrol. What the name of the town in the Tyrol in turn takes its name from I cannot say. We may say of them, without any disparagement as to their virtues or utility, that they are just as ready to take up a residence in those localities that have been described as “ Back of PINUS CEMBRA 17 beyond ”’ or ‘‘ Never, never,’ as in the richer locations of the most favoured sites. Like the Syrian cony, too, they take delight in stony places for an habitation. It will perhaps be noticed that another Pine, P. Pinea, also assumes, among many other aliases, this name of Stone Pine, and in the face of the fact that it belongs to another group, and is of a perfectly different appearance, habit, and locality. One little characteristic they have in common (these two aspirants for the honour of a name), and only one, and it is that they both evolve a large-sized seed or nut, enclosed in a hard, bony shell, which presumably has been considered to resemble a stone. We give this as the attested origin of their familiar name, Stone Pine, but are under no responsibility for the suitability of its application: These Cembra Pines are for the most part a smaller, closer-leaved edition of a tree than, for instance, the previous group of Strobi Pines. Their cones are shorter and thicker in proportion to their length. The old definition ‘‘short and stout and round about” describes the shape of their fruit, if not the trees, admirably. They may be said to rather represent the bantam battalions of the Pine-tree army. As the lesser animal sometimes thrives where the larger dies, so it is with trees: the P. Cembra not only thrives but lives, it is recorded, to a most unusual length of years in places which many a statelier Pine at a bare sight of would wither, droop, and die. We will attempt a brief account of some of the family tests held and observed in common by the members of this Cembran caste. Their leaves are of the fox-brush form, and most of the dense arrange- ment form of that type. Their seed is slow to germinate, and the tree itself is of more slothful 18 PINES disposition still in its efforts at growth; and when we say this we must bear in mind that naturalists tell us that the more intelligent animals take longer. to grow up than the less intelligent—that, for example, while civilized man takes twenty years, uncivilized men take only fourteen; or, again, that while an orang-outang takes twelve years to mature, the lesser- developed Japanese ape accomplishes his destiny of a full growth in four years; last on the list comes the rat, who becomes full grown in a year. Whether this habit of slow growth has any application in the case of trees, and is a sign of a higher culture, as it is in the animals, we hazard no opinion; we cite it in a peri ratione (by similar reasoning) sense, with the remark added that it is generally conceded that slow-growing trees make the best timber, and the wood of Cembra has always been in much demand and put to many uses by the inhabitants of the country it comes from. We may add to its qualities of adaptability that it transplants, probably on account of these sluggish tendencies, with more ease than most of its kind. Their average height as a group, however you reckon it, would have to be underwritten at con- siderably less than half the height of the trees of the previous group. In thus estimating them we leave out the P. Koraiensis, as it is so far an unknown quantity among us: it has not yet had time to declare its intentions as to the stature it aims at attaining here. On the other hand, among the Strobi in this cal- culation we include its little misfit relation and squab of the family, the P. Parviflora, which pulls their average down badly. These are but a few jogtrot observations upon some of their characteristics, and we confess that they shed but a dim light upon their identification, P. CEMBRA, KORAIENSIS, AND ARMANDI_ 19 and that identification made easier is by way of being the leading motif of our theme. It must be pointed out that out of the six species only one is found so far as occasionally flourishing or in a state of maturity in Great Britain, and that is the P. Cembra. P. CemBRA AND P. KoRAIENSIS.— Aerial pines from loftier steeps ascend, Nor stop but where Creation seems to end. WoRrDSWORTH. Of all this Cembra group the P. Cembra is the only one that we are the least likely to come across in the full-grown dignity of middle or older age in any of our wanderings round the British Isles. The Koraiensis appears in a state of adolescent age in a few favoured localities, and specimens of from 30 to 40 in. may be seen of this size at Highnam (Glos.), Tregrehan (Cornwall), and probably a few others climatically favoured elsewhere. The tree itself was introduced in 1861. A great similarity exists between this Korean Pine and the Alpine Cembra. The cones are easily distinguishable, not only on account of the disparity of size and shape, but on account of the very marked appearance of the regularly deflexed scale-tips of the P. Koraiensis. While the cone of the Cembra is a little round football- shaped specimen, and often not more upstanding in length than 14 in., the P. Koraiensis produces speci- mens of nearly 6-in. length. There are other more minute botanical differences mentioned in the tables, which are for those to investigate who have time, opportunity, or inclination. P. Armanpv1, or White Pine of China, was only discovered in 1895. The specimens at Kew are somewhere about 20 ft. and have borne cones. These cones are of about the same size as those of the 3 20 PINES Koraiensis, or perhaps a little larger, but without the reflexed scale symptom. Why this tree has not been given its commission in the ranks of the Strobi contingent is a matter of some wonderment to the more superficial among students. We think that here is a case when the ‘‘ man in the street ” or the casual onlooker would be deserving of forgiveness if he failed to apprehend its connexion with this group, and if he regarded it suspiciously in the light of recusant within a true fold. The P. Armandi has pendulous leaves and pen- dulous cones, while the Cembra has vertical leaves and erect cones; moreover, the former resembles in leaf appearance and pendulous arrangement the P. Excelsa of the Strobi group. It seems rather a stretch of the imagination to perceive any: family likeness between their respective cones. They are not quite ‘‘ so fine by degrees and beautifully less ”’ in shape as some of the Strobi cones, and the Strobi seem to put in a claim for a pharisaical exclusion of sect on account of this tapering cone figure that they affect. We ask again in wonder, Where are the signs of external difference between Armandi and Strobi? There are, it must be added, some variations and mysteries as to their resin ducts (they are median. not marginal, as are the Strobi), but these are in- tricacies rather beyond our scope and the compre- hension of average man. It was Dean Swift who complained that he was an Irishman by the’ visita- tion of God. By the determination of the Fates the P. Armandi has been assigned to the Cembre family. There let it bide and in peace. This tree is colloquially and variously called the White, Fruit, and Cow Pine. P. Pumira.—The P. Pumila (not to be confused with the P. Pumilio, a variation of the P. Montana), P. PUMILA AND FLEXILIS at is a rarity that comes from northern lands and from such ice-bound regions as Lake Baikal (E. Siberia). It is of dwarf rather than of full-tree dimension, since it only attains a height of 10 ft. It has been tried at a few places: at Leonardslee, for one, by Sir Edmund Loder ; so far they have only made (he tells me) a growth of 6 in. in the few years that he has attempted their cultivation, but even this effort seems to spell rapidity itself, when taken in com- parison with the history of its growth at Dropmore. There it only contrived a height of 10 in. after a fifty years’ attempt. At this rate it seems that many generations of owners would pass away to dust and ashes before any descendant heir-at-law would find himself able to enjoy a sight of it at full growth, much less to exhibit a plank from it, at a Royal Agricultural S.E. Forestry Show. But it is only fair to add that it never set up to be even in its Arctic homes anything greater than a dwarf or prostrate shrub, more fitted for a rock garden than a pinetum. We have made further allusion to this weird specimen of plant life under heading P. Montana var. Pumilio. P. Frexitis.—The Flexilis we may liken, and rémember it accordingly, on account of a peculiar characteristic that signalizes it, to the acrobatic performer of the fair. In the same way that the indiarubber man of the booth can contort his frame without any apparent inconvenience to his feelings or disarrangement to his system, so a branch of the Flexilis can be twisted to any degree or angle without fear of breakage. There is a hard-wood tree that we all know well, which is called by an ultra-opposite name, and for the very excellent reason that it possesses exactly Opposite properties, and that is the Salix Fragilis, variously called the Brittle-twig and Crack Willow. 22 PINES It is so called for the obvious reason that its twigs snap upon the slightest provocation. This Willow, then, may be said to represent the extreme party of the inflexibles, while the Pine in subject may be regarded as representing extremists of the opposition and the most flexible examples of tree structure. If, then, in our walks we come up against a mys- terious low-growing Pine, with five leaves in a bundle, directed upwards (not pendulous), of from 2} to 3 in. long, not quite so thickly situated on its yellow-grey branchlets as, for instance, the above-mentioned Cembra or the Foxtail Pines (P. Aristata and P. Balfouriana), then may our suspicions be strongly grounded for believing that we have run to his place upon earth the Stone Pine from America’s Rocky Mountains. If we were wishful to make assurance doubly sure, we might go so far as to take a leaf home and put it under the tell-tale influence of a microscope. If by that process we failed to discern a vestige of jagged serrulation on its leaves, it would indeed be a case of Q.E.D. and our suspicions turned into certainty. This bending competition is what we should cordially recommend as of most powerful avail in arriving at a recognition of this rarely seen tree—to say nothing of the diversion it would afford to the ex- perimentalists in making a trial of this peculiar quality. P. ALBICAULIS.—Specimens of this tree are still fewer and farther between, if possible, than its predecessors of the group. A few of them have been tried at Kew and also at Leonardslee, and grow, as is the way with this little coterie, slowly but, so far they have grown there, surely. It is evidently almost a facsimile in appearance to P. BUNGEANA AND GERARDIANA 23 the Flexilis, but is distinguished from it by a minute display of pubescence. As far as an opportunity of seeing it elsewhere or coming across it in our peregrinations, there seems to be as remote a chance as that of stumbling upon a roc’s or great auk’s egg. Specimens of cones of this tree we know from experience are hard to obtain: they must be a hard nut, too, to crack (even from the rodent squirrel’s point of view), since they (we read) never open out at all except under compulsory powers. The chip- munk (an American squirrel), on the principle, we opine, that forbidden fruits are sweetest, shows such a determined spirit of greed for the possession of their contents, that no one except the most persistent of men and the most undefeated among sportsmen would stand a chance of winning them for a trophy remembrance in competition against such well- equipped and advantageously situated opponents. GERARDIANA GROUP OF PLANE BARK PINES P. BuNGEANA AND P. GERARDIANA These trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I'll character. SHAKESPEARE. There are no trees that carry their characters more conclusively in their bark system than the two above-mentioned members of this very reduced little party of Pines. Ata certain stage of their existence, their bark peels off after the manner of a Plane tree— and shall we add of an Arbutus or a Birch tree that “lays aside its white skin wrapper ’’—and leaves as a result of this shedding process a very unusual and picturesque effect. This seems to be quite an original proceeding, on the part of the main stem, of any middle-aged Pines. 24 PINES There is another glaring anomaly in their system, so far as ternate (three leaves in a bundle) Pines are concerned, and that has reference to the deciduous habits of their basal sheaths. In the case of the Bungeana, it falls away the first year. In the case of the P. Gerardiana it remains until the second year, and then disappears, a pro- ceeding which is also another novelty in all Pine tradition. Though these sort of departures from the true paths of strict orthodoxy are only ques- tions at most of disconcerting interest to the advanced botanist, they ought to be seized upon as tokens of serviceable help to identification by the less-advanced student. They are some of those little apparitional differences that should be of subtle assistance to the dilettante, and are well worth looking out for when he comes across an unfamiliar-looking three-leaved Pine. It is for these two habits, peculiar to themselves, among the three-leaved lot, this shedding of bark ‘and basal sheath, that these two Pines have been handcuffed together in amicable bondage, and formed into a little duumvirate of partnership, in a group of their own. , ‘P. BunGEana.—The branchlets of the Bungeana at Kew are of a greyish green, and the several can- delabra-formed stems (of one of the two trees) are of an ashen-grey colour. This appearance may be mainly an effect due to.a life spent in a begrimed atmosphere, and traceable to those same artificial causes that are so apt to temporarily deface a chimney sweep’s weekday countenance. As the tree appears there, it certainly looks to the unsophisticated visitor more like a bit of beechwood that has done time in a colliery pit, and lost the glamour of its pristine shine, than a specimen of plant life that some day P. BUNGEANA 25 is going to develop into a butterfly stage of brightened beauty. In its native country, we are told—for few have had the luck to see the “‘ Pai-koo-sung ” (the native name which stands for ‘‘ Pine with the White Bark ”’) at home—that at fifty years of age this tree undergoes a remarkable transformation effect of colour scheme, and assumes a most striking and fascinating appear- ance. The grey and dingy bark is cast aside, the story of Cinderella is in scenic sense repeated, and the sombre dress of a household drudge, by wave of hand and in a moment of time, is changed into the radiant white of a spotless attire. The late Lord Redesdale, in his Memories, speaks of a visit paid to China in 1865, and describes the impression this Pine, planted around the Buddhist temples near Pekin, produced upon him. I will quote his words textually: ‘‘ The (Chinese) ceme- teries are darkly shaded by tall Chinese Junipers, and the weird lace-bark Pines (P. Bungeana), whose stems and branches are richly embroidered with silver patches, gleam ghostlike among the more brilliant foliage.” The Chinese have always been addicted to paying more attention to the decoration of their last resting- place than the comforts of their less-abiding homes onearth. Under these rather curious-to-us thoughts and ideas, it can only be regarded as a compliment to their appearance of the highest order, that these Pine trees were found where they were—namely, in full territorial possession of the mortuary sites of Chinese scenery. The occupation of such a site, we may point out, although it may be a much-sought- after surrounding for a Chinese native or a Chinése Conifer, is a complimentary position de luxe that hardly appeals to the representatives of either human or plant life in Western civilization, They, we think, 26 PINES would be far readier to dispense with any honour in these directions than their congeners in the Celestial Kingdom. We must remind again those who would plant for themselves, as well as for that haunting vision lightly spoken of as posterity, that it is not until the middle ages of its existence, until after some two score and ten years have passed by, and the nursery days have been left behind some half a century, that this P- Bungeana takes upon itself to assume this white robe of glory, or penitential sheet, in whichever light you may prefer to liken its curious transfiguration. Why, it may well be asked, was not this rare gem of the earth brought more to the notice of those who were planting rarities in the forties of the last century ? Had they been, our seniors in life’s progress, the seniores priores of the . middle-aged and elderly to-day, might have bequeathed to us, and to the generations in life’s tenure after us, an opportunity to revel in a new sight, and admire a new wonder. | The Silver Birch, or ‘ ‘ Lady of our Woods,” as the tree has been poetically described by Sir Walter Scott, although not a tree chosen to reflect white rays upon the sepulchres in a Western country ‘burial-ground, as are. the Bungeana in China, for all that are treasured by us for the conspicuous beauty of their gleaming white stems. If by chance any other species of the Birch tree arises and tries to outshine our native product—ds have, for instance, the Betula Utilis from the Himalayas (in those few places where it will thrive), or the hardier P. Papyrifera (the Canoe Birch of American Redskins), and some of the forthcoming expectations from Chinese exploration—those species are eagerly sought for and planted, but the P. Bun- geana seems to have been left out in the cold of neglect, P.. GERARDIANA AND BUNGEANA 27 and never been quite so worked up by nurserymen to the extent that it deserves. An answer to these i inquiries may perhaps be found in the tale told of its history. Dr. Bunge, a Russian, discovered it in 1836. Robert Fortune sent its seeds here in 1846, and their results to-day may be prac- tically computed at nil, or next to nil. Since when, Wilson has walked into a goodly company of them in Central China, and some day perhaps, at too great a distance of time for most of us, our children and grandchildren may be gladdened by a sight that it was not our lot to see. One more word upon them: the Bungeana and Gerardiana have been called at times ‘‘ the Lace Bark Pine,’’ and Elwes and Henry have entered an objection to this designation on the score of ‘inappro- ‘priateness. It would be only the masterful mind of a bold man who would dare gainsay what this formidable duet of able men have laid down, and in this case, if ‘anyone were to try it on, his position would be particularly untenable. It is a name that at best can convey but an indistinct idea of appear- ance to most. There are so many different kinds of laces of so many different hues, ranging in colour from dull ivory to alabaster white. There are so many different kinds of laces—we would plaintively plead—from so many different countries and places, from Flanders,, France, Alencon, Ireland, etc., and so few tree students who possess the remotest dens of their differences. We are grateful that Elwes and Henry have protested against ‘the inappropri- ateness of the name, and afforded. us protection from the confusion that such a misnomer might have created in our more inerudite ranks. P. GeERARDIANA.—This is another of those Pines that a rare sight of is all you can hope to obtain.” It has 28 PINES generally been regarded as exhibiting an hostility to English shores ; however, there is one graduating at Cambridge under the helpful tuition of Mr. R. Irwin Lynch, in the Botanical Gardens, with every prospect of obtaining a fair degree of success. Rather, I think, on the strength of this change of attitude, in an amiable direction, towards an English climate on the part of this Pine, it has been distributed for a few trial trips in various places among enthusiasts on the subject of encouraging rarities. As far as our experience goes here (Radnorshire), they seem to be holding their own at an altitude of 800 ft. above sea-level, but only so far in the earlier stages of life. Its chief peculiarity, that of shedding its leaf sheath in the second year, has been alluded to. The leaf sheath shows an imbricated arrangement, the scales growing like the stem-clinging leaves of a Cypress with a spreading point, which is a departure from | the ordinary custom of Pine trees. It has been said that once some confusion reigned between it and another Pine called P. Longifolia, a confusion which only did, and only could, arise from a wrong label. The latter tree has, however, been relegated in authoritative writings to the position of an alien in our midst, and it is only to be found interned in hotter places, such as the Temperate House at Kew. Were it to come into evidence, the cone structure would solve the problem of identity, to say nothing of other differences. Some obtained by me of the P. Longifolia from Naples are 5} in. long and 2} in. diameter, while the cones of the Gerardiana obtained from India measure 64 in. long and 4} in. in diameter, a very substantial difference. It was discovered by Captain Gerard in the N. -W. Himalayas, and was known as an eatable-seeded Pine of the East Indies, that went by the name of P. Neoza. P, BALFOURIANA AND ARISTATA 29 BALFOURIANA GROUP OF FOX-TAIL PINES Here we have another little group, merged in a class of their own, and answering to the almost appropriate name of Fox-tail. We say almost ap- propriate, for Fox-tail is a word that falls rather strangely upon English ears, where all, from the luckier who has the good fortune to bestride a horse, to the lowlier pedestrian and excited workman— who invariably deserts his daily work if the hounds come by, and is as invariably forgiven by his task- master for so doing—are at least of one mind upon one unvexed question. All, one and all, votaries or even non-votaries of the chase indulge in but one colloquial name for this hirsute appendage of the animal in question. With one harmonious accord they call it “ brush.” We note that some nurserymen, in deference to custom and accepted medium of expression, actually describe and advertise the tree as Fox-brush Pine. In so doing they cling. to a name that tells its tale well and truly. The resemblance of its closely clustered leaves to the article whence it derives its name helps in, if it does not quite render unmistak- able, the identification of these trees. The two of them, the P. Balfouriana and P. Aristata, were once content to dwell together in unity of name and species. Now this harmony has been broken by some of the fixed stars of our arboricultural firmament. The P. Aristata occupies a position of the mountain, or Alpine, variety of the P. Balfouriana. Their difference seems to be that the mountain variety shows (1) more distinct pubescence on its branchlets, as is the way of mountain varieties ; (2) the incurved prickle of the cone is a good deal longer than that upon the P. Balfouriana, and measures 30 PINES half an inch. These awn-like prickles suggested a name for it, and the name Aristata, derived from the ‘Latin word arista, signifying the beard of an ear of corn, was forthwith dealt out to it; (3) the P. Aristata exudes specks of white resin on its leaves, and this should be a sure and easy method of differen- tiating the two. While the P. Aristata is in this way flecked, the P. Balfouriana is fleckless and un- spotted, like saints onearth. By the non-cognoscenti, these white specks have been taken for some sort of Chermes’ visitation, or other felted scale insect affliction, but a little further examination or micro~ graphic investigation shows that there is nothing more amiss than a leakage of resin through the stomata. There is yet another sure method which applies to the identification of them both, besides the densely crowded and. appressed-to-stem leaves, and that is the basal sheaths break away like a-torn riband, and form themselves into a rosette-shaped appearance at the base of the leaf. The margins of the leaves are entire, a rare characteristic in Pines. The first-named was discovered in 1852, and the Alpine variety some ten years after,so they still— especially in view of the fact that they are slow growers—are rather innovations with us, but innova- tions in the shape of young trees that are yearly becoming less novel. CEMBROIDES GROUP OF NUT PINES P. MONopHYLLA, EpULIS, CEMBROIDES, AND PARRYANA (OR QUADRIFOLIA) The trees in this group of four all hail from America, all have edible seeds, and each one has a different number of leaves to the cluster. From one to four are all represented, and in the order of number as above written. P. MONOPHYLLA AND CEMBROIDES 31 P. Monopuytta,. the one-in-a-cluster representa- tive, is a very slow-growing tree, and only occasionally seen in botanical gardens. Though it is rumoured that attempts to grow them—and we may include in this remark the Edulis and Cembroides—were made many years ago, evidences of these efforts are apparently not very forthcoming. A few have, we believe, been planted of late years by collectors of the ‘‘unordinary.” As the tree only seems to increase at a rate of about 3} in. per annum, it must be presumed that those who plant, plant for a far- distant-off posterity. Yet even this tree, with all its sloth of habit, does not bear away the palm, under Grand National Donkey Race rules (when the first is last, and the last first), in any competition of this description among its kindred companions, since the P. Eputis grows at a still slower pace. It and the P. PARRYANA, or QUADRIFOLIA (as it seems better known in America), the representative of the four- in-a-cluster member of the family, are more or less non-existent in the British Isles, though Veitch in his manual of Conifers suggests hopeful possibilities for the latter in a Cornish or Devon climate. I cannot hold out encouraging hopes to any in quest of their seed. So far it is the only one mentioned in the fifty-two species of Pines by Elwes and Henry that I have failed to add a specimen of to my cone col- lection. P. CrmpBrorpEs.—The _ three-leaves-in-a-cluster member of the group. After diligent search, quite respectably grown specimens of this tree have been found growing in several places in Great Britain. Though not of much account evidently here, or highly recommended by the faculty, these trees bear in the central scales of their cones highly prized delicacies of an edible 32 PINES ' nature. Thus they more than justify their existence in the land of their origin, if they are a little reluctant in their efforts to carry on that existence here. The identification of the only one-leaved and the only four-leaved Pine—and accordingly called ‘‘ Mo- no’”’ and ‘‘ Quadri,” “‘ phylla’’ and “‘ folia ’’—requires no inspired genius to distinguish, and the easiest way, if rare occasions demanded, to differentiate the two- leaved Edulis and the three-leaved Cembroides is to engrave upon the tablets of your memory that they are the only. two- or three-leaved Pines that have the: rosette-like leaf sheaths, described in the cases of the five-leaved Fox-tail Pines. PSEUDO-STROBUS GROUP OF PINES | P. Montezuma, Hartwecii, PsEupDo-STROBUS, - TORREYANA Lo, all the stately progeny of Pines Come with their floating foliage, richly decked To fill that void. W. Mason, The English Garden, Pseudo-Strobus is the rather unedifying name given’ to this group. While they are hard-wood, the true Strobi are soft-wood Pines; and herein must con- stitute the falsity that Pseudo spells and implies, while a more outward resemblance to the distinctive features of the true Strobi must be accountable for the cognomen of their coterie. The difference be- tween these two differently wooded Conifers is explained in the glossary, and alluded to in previous pages on Pines generally. The first three come from Mexico, and the last- named, the Torreyana, hails from California.. Mexico may be in theory a Paradise for the botanist and tree lover, but several circumstances seem at present to militate against a prospect of any inundation of P. MONTEZUMA 33 plant life from these regions, or overflow into them of any surplus human kind, bitten with the self- preservation creed, that though their shirts may be near, their skin is still nearer. The first of these is that Mexico still is, and for a long time has been, what the President of the: U.S. America describes as preoccupied in “ settling up her domestic affairs,” and this state of affairs spells a very disturbing process, both to man and beast. The second is that a condition of perpetual Civil War and the more peaceful mission of the collecting botanist do not go well together; and, thirdly, that those trees that have been brought back from those regions are, for the most part, very touchy about the climatic conditions they find themselves invited to face. Like Israel’s scattered race, in the words of Byron, They cannot quit their place of birth, They cannot live in other earth, And this, in many cases, seems to sound the keynote of their swan song, and to express the refrain of their failure. The P. Montezuma.—Of those that have flourished in favoured localities, perhaps the P. Montezuma and its three-leaved, in other aspects outward counter- part and fellow countryman the P. Patula (which, by the way, belongs to the Tedz group), with their long, pendulous, mane-like leaves, would be voted by any plebiscite of approved scenery seekers the most attractive among all existent Pines. Can we sound their praises higher ? P. Pszeupo-Strosus.—This Pine is so near, so very near, inso many of its similarities to the P. Montezuma, that we wonder, in our uninstructed innocence, why 34 PINES it has not a place among its varieties, instead of being starred alone in the pride of an independent species. A smoother bark and more slender branchlets are all its claims to isolation, and it is for this that the more lowly intelligence of the lesser-endowed tribunal, composed of Mankind in the Street, has to bow before the decision of the superior court of appeal. The P. Hartweci1.—Although it is nothing else than the Montezuma of the north, and representative of higher regions and colder climes, it can produce many a testimonial in favour of its claim to a separate title. It has shorter leaves and a hardier constitution than the more tropically inclined Montezuma, and seems to be able to thrive in any English climate, favoured or unfavoured, as the authorities divide them. Where the Montezuma can only just poke up his nose, imbibe with distaste a little winter air, and then ingloriously die, the Hartwegii, like the green bay tree of the Psalmist, flourishes in the rudest appearance of unchecked health. George Russell Shaw, in a U.S.A. Arnold Arboretum publication, mentions some eighteen species of Mexi- can Pines. Upon about half of these we have received our instructions from authoritative writers on Conifers. The P. Oocarpa takes after the Montezuma in the number of leaves per bundle, while seven or so of these Mexicans take after the P. Patula in that direction, and sometimes other respects. They may be found and seen, eg. the P. Nelsoni, Teocote, Leiophylla, Greggi, in the Temperate House at Kew. Whether they take after the Montezuma and Patula, or the Montezuma or Patula after them, from a patriarchal-system point of view, is a question better settled upon outside the radius of our shores: There are other Mexicans besides these, cropping up at intervals, and inviting attention, but they have THD GROUP OF PINES 35 no place of notice in our elementary efforts at the elucidation of the trees more in our midst. The P. TorrREYANA need not trouble the identi- fying intelligence of the looker around, since it is supposed there is hardly a living specimen extant ‘with us. TAD GROUP OF TERNATE PINES P. CouLTERI, SABINIANA, JEFFREYI, TUBERCULATA, Rapiata (or Insicnis), PatuLa, TEOCOTE, Ricipa, SEROTINA, PaLustTRis, Tapa, CaANa- RIENSIS. Forth they went into the fore Bringing firewood to the wi ee pine cones for the bu ing, By the ead that still were ee By the glimmering, flickering firelight. LoncFELLow, Song of Hiawatha. Numerically, this group presents rather a formid- able list. The frightfulness of the length is consider- ably diminished by the fact that one and only one, the P. Radiata, more familiarly known as the P. Insignis in England, if not in America, is in what we may call a state of common cultivation with us. The four last mentioned in the list of twelve are practically non-existent with us, while among the others there are those that severally might be de- scribed as uncommon, inclined to be uncongenial, or very rare, in the British Isles. The Latin word Tzda—the equivalent of the Greek word 8460s, the genitive case of the noun substantive Sds—claims the honour of responsibility for the appropriate name given to the group. When translated it will be found that these words of learned length, and in one instance (the Teocote) of still 4 36 PINES more puzzling hieroglyphic formation—both of them culled from the deep depths of dead languages— — denote Torch Pines, or Firebrands. Both of them, too, have similar significances, and are associated with those Pine trees that. are most super-abundant in resinous qualities. When it was thought befitting in an olden day, where primitive customs prevailed, to requisition a little illumination for the purpose of a more decorous carrying out of certain ceremonies, or orgies, as the case might be, these sort of Pitch Pine trees and their boughs were articles in great request. If it was a marriage ceremony that was contem- plated, a nuptial torch (taeda jugalis) was deemed an essential; a custom, we might add, that has its con- tinuance in a modern-day world. The-torch dance at a royal wedding in the Prussian Court has been accounted by eye-witnesses the most picturesque episode of its drawn-out proceedings. ‘If a torchlight procession was considered the right thing, or regarded as a desirable adjunct in the in- terests of artistic effect—at one time, perhaps, on the occasion of a conquering hero’s return, at another as an obbligato to the obsequies of a defunct celebrity, or even maybe as a more commonly employed ac- companiment of various other kinds of jaunts, pageants, carnivals, or masquerades, either of a festal or funeral nature—these Torch Pines (¢ed@ ar- dentes) were the fiery beacons that lent colour to the scenes, and gave the whole proceedings a tone. From many of these trees enumerated in the Tede group, this obligation was expected to be forthcoming. They were depended upon, before the dawning days of electricity, acetylene, or kerosene convenience, to contribute those rays of primitive light that were required, and were all that at that time was obtainable to impart dignity and add P, COULTERI AND SABINIANA 37 lustre to the various ceremonies in their turn of revelry or solemnity. P. CouLTERI AND SABINIANA.— So they gathered cones together, Gathered seed cones of the pine tree, Gathered blue cones of the fir tree... There they stood all armed and waiting, Hurled the pine cones down upon him. LONGFELLow, This is how we are told in the Song of Hiawatha that the mischievous Puk-Wudjies, they “ the envious little people,” did to death mighty Kwasind, the strong man of the Red Indian legend. In this affray it must, have been the heavy cones of some such Pines as these that scored, and did the work of siege guns upon the sleeping head of the ill-fated giant of champion renown, and of whom it was boasted “‘no man dared to strive with,’’ and “no one could compete with.” A “ blue cone of the fir tree,” hurled, to him would have been but a popgun affair, and as an assault by a wasp on a brick wall. On paper there seem a very few points of difference between these two Conifers—P. Coulteri and Sabini- ana—beyond the shape of their both gigantic cones, ‘yet in its native land the P. Sabiniana is accounted as of a marked unmistakable appearance. P. Sapiniana.—In a country of luxuriantly foliaged trees (California), it alone is sparsely attired with leaf .decoration. In a country of towering Pines, it alone is many-stemmed, straggly, and bushlike. In a country of rich and dark-green foliage, it alone wears leaves of palest hue. For these characteristics it has been accredited with a remotest Pine ancestry, and looked upon by some as hastily nearing that decadent 38 PINES condition and stage of existence which is generally associated with Aztecs, Australian aboriginals or bushmen, and other perishing people of the earth’s surface. For these reasons it will be opined that as a tree here it is more likely to be occasionally tried by curiosity-mongers than abstract-minded admirers blest with a soul for scenic effect. The size of the cones, both of the P. Coulteri and P. Sabiniana, which in point of-fact are rarely seen, even by the most inveterate Pinetum hunters; is a matter of incredible surprise to anyone upon a first introduction. The cones of the Sabiniana are shorter longways, and more rotund broadways, than those of the Coulteri, and present quite a different appear- ance. Authorities have written very variable state- ments as to their weight. Some of the Coulteri cones that I have shown at forestry exhibitions give the following weights: An unbroken cone from the Yosemite Valley, 4 lb. 11 0z.; and two other broken cones, one from Arley Castle (R. Woodward), and another from Leaton Knolls (Colonel Lloyd, M.V.O.) weighing just over 3 Ib. each. P. PonDEROSA and JEFFREYI.—It is not an easy process to distinguish these trees apart at a first glance from the preceding two that we have discussed. The cones, if they could only be persuaded to put in even a casual appearance, would opportunely come to the rescue of any worker at the riddle. While the cones on the Ponderosa are pretty plentiful, there are only a select few, be it remembered, who have ever had the opportunity of seeing cones on an English-grown Coulteri or Sabiniana. Speaking from the personal point of view, and frankly confessing the limitations of that. narrowed area, the P. Pon- derosa (with the exception of the P, Insignis) is by far away the most commonly met with tree of all P. PONDEROSA, JEFFREYI, TUBERCULATA 39 this group. Whether it is that they have endured the conditions of our climate with more success than other trees imported about the:same time, or whether their presence is due to the fact that those who planted them, when they preferred an off-hand request, perhaps on some visit to a nursery garden, and asked in all their innocence for a rarer Pine to plant somewhere or other, on some newly enclosed garden or ground, mead, or meadow, were, so to speak, served across the counter with the readiest-at-hand stock-in-trade article of the nurserymen, which often turned out to be the subject of our discourse, the P. Ponderosa (and which often, by the way, was distributed under the name of P, Benthamii), I am unable to do more than surmise. Those that it has been my fate to see have all exhibited the curious phase of curved and tortuous branches. The different colour of the shoots (vide Table), and the larger cones, seem to be the best points to make for, to decide between the Ponderosa and Jeffreyi. Both seem to depend for success upon a dry soil, and to prefer a dry climate. P. TUBERCULATA and the two-leaved P. Muricata have one point in common, and that is to be noticed in their cone-clusters clinging persistently on the large-sized branches. As the P. Tuberculata is a three-leaf-in-a-cluster Pine and the P.. Muricata a two-leaf-in-a-cluster Pine, the problem of distinguish- ing the one from the other is most happily reduced to aneasy process. In the case of the P..Tuberculata these cone-clusters appear in the very early stages of. life in the tree. Not content with crowding them- selves on the older branches, they also invade the main trunk of the tree, until at times they actually become embedded in it. For this reason the tree appropriately receives its name Tuberculata, a word 40 PINES which, under the process of translation, emerges as ‘furnished with a protuberance or any projecting substance.” It was introduced in 1847, and cannot be accounted to have thrived in England. These trees, with asymmetrical oblique and per- sistent cones, are spoken of among botanists as serotinous, which may be taken to mean that some untimely episode in the natural course of events happens to take place in the course of their existence, and the event referred to in this case has reference to the shedding of their seeds. Serotinous is a word which literally taken means “late in the day,” and equally might apply to human action as to tree habits. Three agents there are said to be which are responsible for this process of seed distribution, and they are: the wind, animals, and fire, and the P. Tuberculata is only amenable to the influence of the last. Of such a marked feature is this persistent habit in the cone life of some Conifers— as, for instance, in the case of the tree in question, the Insignis, Muricata, Rigida, and others—that it has been suggested that they should be reclassified in accordance with this habit. Those who, at a humble distance, have tried to master some of the rudimentary arrangements of the past-masters of the art, and to follow the modest amendments made from time to time to a long-established classification, which has gradually broadened and developed, ‘in unhurried discussion and with authoritative consen- sus, must devoutly hope and one and all pray for a deliverance from such a drastic overthrow of the prescribed rules of the game that may leave so many of us to begin anew once more, ‘ to burn what we have been taught to adore,” and to bow down before a new shibboleth. Heaven save us all from a fate like this ! _P. INSIGNIS, P. PATULA ‘41 P. Raprata or Insicnis.—In spite of the contested nature of its name, this Pine from Monterey has been and will be, I strongly suspect, to most alive of over twenty years of age now, still known and made allusion to by its old name of P. Insignis. By that name we have known it, by that name where it grows in plenty it has been always familiarly greeted on sight. If we have been wrong in calling it Insignis, we have many of us been wrong through a long er- roneous life, and now is too late in the day to change our habits and call it by any other name. Old friends cannot be expected to find anything welcome or irradiating in the change. Of such commanding strength is force of habit! Itrequires something even more compelling than royal decree or stroke of pen to change such a widely established nomenclature. The Insignis is a tree that undoubtedly favours sea air, and grows at its best on our warmer coast lines; at the same time it can flourish, and has flour- ished, in some more Midland situations, and often it has been observed best, despite a saltless influence, in the more humid environment of lakes dnd ponds. One tribute more must we pay to this so-called “remarkable Pine,’’ and it is this, that where it succeeds it seems to luxuriate in the most superabund- ant and brilliant wealth of grass-green effects of colour, and to look as if it absolutely revelled in an irradiating glow of health, strength, and vitality. In this, its state of prime perfection, we may well say of it, in Old Testament metaphor, ‘that its glory covers the heavens, and that the earth is full of its praise.” P. PaTuLa.— And their delectable things shall not profit, but they are their own witnesses,— ISAIAH. ' The P. PatuLa may be looked upon as the analogue of the long-leaved Himalayan P. Longifolia, to which 42 PINES’ allusion has been made in discussing the P. Gerardiana. We have also compared it, from a scenic point of view, with another Mexican Pine, the five-leaf-in-a- cluster P. Montezuma. Both it and the P. Teocote are only to be found flourishing with us in places of exceptional climatic mildness. The P. Patula at Carclew, Cornwall (the residence of Colonel Tremayne), is perhaps the most attractive sight that any Pine can display. It, and the best- growing types of the Montezuma—which are, how- ever, generally smaller-grown specimens with us— would wring a beauty prize from the verdict of any esthetic body of jurymen, in any competition of Pines. As a timber product it may not acquire merit in the eye of the sterner sylviculturist, but an apology for its presence anywhere that it will grow is con- tained in the verse of Isaiah. It is its own witness. The P. TEocore is a shorter-leaved, smaller-coned. edition of the Patula. Diligent search on the part of Elwes and Henry has, it appears, only resulted in finding two or three specimens growing in Cornish or S. Irish climates. Only the cosiest of corners, in the most comfortable of sheltered positions, will give either of them a chance of life with us. We are told that ocofe, in Mexican vernacular, signifies much the same thing as ¢eda. does in the Latin language, and to which we have referred. P. Ricipa.— Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them. LONGFELLOW, Song of Hiawatha, Whether Longfellow had in mind this particular Pine when he wrote his Indian Edda, we do not pretend P. RIGIDA 43 to pronounce upon authoritatively, but we do claim that of the half-dozen hard-wood Pines that hail from the same district in which the scene of the Song of Hiawatha is laid, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, no tree among them could with more faithfulness depict the blackness and gloom described there than the Pinus Rigida. If the P. Patula is to be regarded as rightly entitled to the award in a beauty competition, the P, Rigida can put forward a very substantial claim to a first prize in a class of precisely opposite conditions. When the P. Rigida is set beside the other members of the Abietinee, their few deformities here and there shrink into insignificance by the side of its deformities. In a similar-conditioned show, Quasimodo, the hideous dwarf (in Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame), had only to put his head in the horse collar for the briefest of moments to overmaster any opposition that could be brought to bear against him. The P. Rigida at Kew has only to be looked at for a few moments to convince any beholder of its ability to make as easy a conquest over any rival in a similar competition. ‘With its scarcity of twisted leaves, its scrubby appearance, the unnatural look of its adventitious branches—and sometimes even sta- minate flowers poking their way out from the main trunk—it gives an onlooker the idea that an unkind Nature has doubled it up with every crippling com- plexity, and pelted it with every disability that plant life or human life could be heir to. As a profitable institution it ranks high in its own country, and produces resin in quantities. It is called the northern, while Palustris and Ponderosa are. called respectively the southern and western Pitch Pines. 44 PINES P. SERotTinA, PALUSTRIS, Tapa, CANARIENSIS.— And he sacrificed, and burnt incense, in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.—2 Kins xvi. 4. Although this quotation from Holy Writ had reference to events which took place in Eastern countries, the fact that the Tzeda Pine numbered among its many aliases the name of the Frankincense Pine, and was so saluted by the inhabitants of the country where it grew, seems to suggest that its resinous qualities were in like demand, as were the trees of Palestine, for some ceremonial purposes in western lands. These four Pines are hardly worth words here in addition to their description in Tables. Out-of-doors in Great Britain they have been put upon their trial by many planters, in many places, and found want- ing. They belong to the hopeless category of Come- to-Nothings, as far as our climate seems concerned. They seem to treat immigration to our shores as a pilgrim’s journey, and like a pilgrim’s march, with the prospect only of death at the journey’s end. To expatriate them seems but to invite and condemn them, To wander witheringly, In other lands to die. And whenever they are transplanted from’ their native surroundings, this is an ultimate end they seem speedily to achieve. 45 BANKSIANA GROUP OF TWO-LEAVED OR BINA PINES Green be those hill-side pines for ever, , WHITTIER, P,. Ecurnata (or Mitts), HALEPENSIS, Brutia, Murt- CATA, PUNGENS, VIRGINIANA (oR INops), BANK- SIANA. Of this group of seven there are only two, the P. Muricata and P. Banksiana, that are tolerably often to be seen with us. The majority of them are climate shy, and one, the Virginiana or Inops, has never been persevered with, for the very urgent reason that it neither brings beauty to bear on any scene nor holds out any prospect of profit to its producers. In the two-leaf-in-a-cluster division the old order of class legislation among trees has changed, and given way to the new. The Sylvestres group has been disestablished, and two groups, Banksiana and Pin- aster, set up. Most of the Sylvestres have been drafted to the ranks of the Pinasters, and the new Banksiana group takes toll from both of the old groups formerly named Banksiana and Sylvestres. The chief difference in these two new groups is to be found in the position of their cones, and, secondly, in the’manner of the growth of their shoots. . In the Banksiana group, the cones grow not only on the ends of the branchlets, but also lower down, in the middle of each year’s shoots. In the Pinaster group the cones are only sub- terminal, or approximately close to the end of the branchlet. In the Banksiana group the shoots appear in more than one whorl, and are therefore described botanic- ally as multi-nodal. 46 PINES In the Pinaster group only one whorl of branchlets, buds, and cones appear, and those approximate towards the end, or, in other words, sub-terminally, of each year’s shoot. These are botanically described as uni-nodal as opposed to multi-nodal. P. EcutnaTA, or Mitis.—This is a Pine which one generation, or school of thought, called Echinata, and another generation fixed upon for a name the word Mitis. Echinata literally means either one or two things. To a landsman the first translation “hedgehog” would, in all probability, satisfy his thirst for know- ledge, while to a mariner or dweller by the seashore the second translation “sea urchin,” a little frequenter: of the salt-water element, would probably most strongly appeal. Both of them are prickly-backed representatives of the created world, and that is the main issue before us. Such a name conveys to all the impression that the tree in question has prickly points somewhere in his composition, in common with the members of the Echinoderm family. While the other name bestowed, ‘‘ Mitis,’”” denotes a substance that spells softness. It seems a curious coincidence that this tree should be alternately called after two phases of nature possessed of two such opposite and contradic- tory attributes and qualifications as a hedgt-pig’s quills and a feather-bed mattress respectively recall. How the rough places became smooth, and why the smooth places were called rough, is a bewildering. enigma at first sight. As a matter of fact the leaves of this Pine are notoriously soft, and the cones have prickles like a great many other cones, but rather less than more aggressive than many others that we could mention—the P. Pungens of the same group, to. wit. P. HALEPENSIS 47 As long as anyone remains on English shores, they will have very little opportunity of either making trial of the softness of its leaves or experiments upon the portions of its harder externals. It is one of those many Atlantic Coast Pines that seem to derive no homely joys from any stay with us. It is dissociated in appearance from the other short two-leaved Pines in that its leaves are three- sided, while all the others are two-sided or flat. The brittle nature of its shoots, their blue-white bloom of colour, the complications of the character of its basal sheath of the leaves, all give aid to identity. But as the tree was introduced in 1739, and there appears to be only two or three specimens extant with us, any chances for putting into practice a little observation on these points are likely to be remotely removed from the paths in life that most of us are wont to traverse. _P. HaLepensis, ALEPPO, OR JERUSALEM PINE,—The same remarks as to their scarcity of appearance which applied to the preceding P. Echinata refer equally to this Pine. It is the commonest of the Mediter- ranean region, and though it has, under transportation to Australia and other places, thrived and made conquest of new lands and countries, England is not to be counted among them. It is one of those Pines that must be remembered, among several others (Pinaster, Thunbergii), as achieving success on barren seashores. As a sand- dune tree and in the production of resin, it is reported to even outclass the Pinaster of the Landes. Like a goat, that is said to thrive on orange-peel and brown paper, P. Halepensis is quite happy on soilless lands and rocks where nothing else thrives. If by chance you came across a two-leaved low tree, with branches singularly devoid of leaves, and 48 PINES yellow-brown cones with very thick peduncles (stalks), produced sometimes singly but often in whorls, then your suspicions may be justifiably aroused to the fact that you have encountered the Jerusalem Pine. If you went one step farther and examined the buds, and found that they were non-resinous. and had recurved scales, then you may be sure that it was either the Halepensis or its variety, the P. Brutia, since they alone of two-leaved Pines are formed that way. But such a chance of investigation would be far more likely to take place in a tramp abroad than a trip at home. P. Brutia.—It seems to be rather a controverted point, whether this tree should be regarded as a separate species or variety of the P. Halepensis. Both sport non-resinous buds with recurved scales, and this dissociates them from the others in the group. The shoots of the P. Halepensis are grey, the shoots of the P. Brutia are green. The cones of the Hale- pensis point backwards, the cones of the Brutia point forwards; and as the names imply (Calabrian and Aleppo), it seems to be more a question of the di- vergencies of geographical habitat that must be held responsible for these disagreements in details. P. MurtcatTa, or BisHop’s PrnE,—From “ Murex,’’ a purple fish with a prickly spine, this Pine derives its Latin name. From its- English name, a reader would incline to the belief that the tree has some connection with the Episcopal bench. Though rather indirectly, it is possible that some sort of ecclesiastical connection can be traced. There is a certain district in California, within the reach of Pacific sea-breeze and salt-water atmosphere, which was named after a certain Bishop San Louis, and known as the San Louis Obispo country, at least P. MURICATA 49 so the story runs as told by some and denied by others. As we are not investigating the antecedents of the bishop, or the question of his existence or non-existence, we must merely content ourselves, and probably more than content our readers, by noting the fact that the tree grew in the Obispo country, and that Obispo means bishop in the language of Spain. It is one of those weird objects of trees that are cone-covered with hooked spine cones of asymmetrical shape, oblique and persistent, and often in large clusters (like those, for instance, of the P. Tuberculata, Insignis, Rigida, and others), growing upon branches, branchlets, and sometimes stems. Like the Insignis, its persistent cones have the scales much thicker on the outer side towards the base. It does not, it must be remembered, go as far in its efforts of per- sisting as the P. Tuberculata and retain them actually embedded in the trunk. But here similarities cease. The P. Muricata is a two-leaf-in-a-cluster Pine, and the trees with similar cones just mentioned are all three-leaved-in-a-cluster Pines, and so tell a tale, candle clear, in the direction of identity. Compared with the others of its group, the P. Muricata is far more commonly seen than any others of its family group. Not that anyone is likely to meet it in ordinary wayside wanderings or holiday rambles—we do not mean to infer that, but only that they are quite likely to come across it in those places where rare trees were planted in times gone by by enterprising collectors; and in such places as these it is that you may encounter it, and, when you do, wonder at leisure upon the curiosities of plant life that Nature has to offer for our observation and study. P. Puncens.—Lest the serenity of mind of the 50 PINES reader of descriptions be disturbed at the similarity of this Pine and the previously described one, as it appears on paper, we offer this crumb of comfort. There is a cone difference that gives a clue. The prickles on the P. Pungens are incurved by tendency, and the prickles of the P. Muricata’s cones are de- cidedly recurved. We might further add that the prickles on the P. Pungens are of a more substantial ‘appearance than those of the Muricata, nor have the cones of the Pungens, at least the ones that I have seen, the thicker scales on the outer side of the base alluded to in the description of the Muricata. Only some half-dozen or so, including two at Kew and two.at Bayfordbury, seem to be the result of the attempt to grow them, and this limited little lot seems to impersonate the summum bonum of their success in England. 5 Consensus of opinion among the magnates on the subject concurs in the opinion that where the tree has been attempted the result has been an inglorious failure. Few have survived, and in those few places that they have, in their older stages of life have turned out the reverse of ornamental... In all pro- bability they will be encountered in even lesser numbers in the future than they have been in the past. P. Virciniana, or Inops.—The word “ Inops ” is a Latin one, and signifies indigence and want of wealth. There is a ring of poverty about the name, that is more usually connected with the indigent fate of a workhouse bratling than the idea of a desirable tree to plant out in the interests of ornamentation. We must presume, too, that it earned its name, as the uncomplimentary remarks made about it by writers ever since have endorsed this view. It is also credited by the same writers with only a’ brief span of life in our collections, and perhaps that, P. BANKSIANA 51 under the circumstances above described, should read rather as a merit than demerit, but not in the sense that those whom the gods love die young. The P. Echinata and P. Virginiana read rather as a complex problem for dissociating purposes. There are these differences : the'leaf of the Echinata is three-sided, the leaf of the Virginiana two-sided, and the difference of the basal sheath should be capable of affording a key to solution. The shoots of both show a bloom of blue or violet coloration. Loudon pointed out, and it is well worth remem- bering by those trying to learn their trees, that only two of the two-leaved Conifers have these coloured shoots, and they are the subjects of our discussion, and that only two of the Ternate, or three-leaved Pines, had shoots of this hue, and they were the P. Coulteri and Sabiniana. To this we ought to add the P. Jeffreyi of the same group, a tree invented since the days of Loudon, the shoots of which are somewhat similar, but of a paler shade of colour, that you might better describe as of a light helio- trope tint. The P. Echinata and Virginiana are said to be hardly distinguishable in their youth, and seemingly pretty much of the same pattern in their adolescence and old age. Yet not like Tennyson’s two sisters, “both beautiful alike.’”’ They both seem cast in an opposite mould, and must have been at some distance round the corner when good looks were being distributed among the families of Pine trees. P. BANKSIANA is a tree a great deal oftener seen than others of this group. Its natural habit seems to be sandy soils and the most barren of localities. It is not recommended by the faculty as a tree to cultivate, yet some who run shootings on high lands and barren tops, where coppice scarce makes show, 5 52 PINES are casting wistful glances on its possibilities to make good bare defects. The tree is in shape of a stunted type. Its short- ness of leaf (about 1} in. long), its plentiful abundance of persistent cones, tapering to a point, and curved as a ram’s horn, make it intelligibly conspicuous to any observer. Of this tree it is written, as of most of its group, that it is of no ornamental or any other value. The old Greek gods of an ancient world had a custom of converting beautiful maidens and glowing youths in whose career they were interested, and generally those who had been cut off before their prime by some untimely fate, into the forms of trees and shrubs, or lovely flowers. What form of man, or figure of a woman, would these all-glorious old Pagan deities have selected to immortalize by converting into the shape of any member of the Banksiana group—the majority of which are inelegant, and the remainder of which are squat of shape—and converted them on their usually adopted principle of similia similibus (like to like), we tremble to think. We will leave it to our readers to select their own model, and, if they-so wish, from the circle of their own acquaintance. PINASTER GROUP OF BIN& (TWO-LEAVED) PINES P. PinasTER, PinEa, SYLVESTRIS, DENSIFLORA, Montana, ConTorTA, RESINOSA, THUNBERGII, Laricio, LEUCODERMIS. Lift to the skies her canopy of woods. Tue PINAsTER GroupP.—The net result of opinion collected from the various sources of authorities, writers, and tree-growers of past and present days seems to amount to this : that, whereas the Banksiana TWO-LEAVED PINES 53 group—at home, mind you, not abroad—has had meted out to it all round about as castigating a dose of ‘“‘ damnation with faint praise ” as ever fell to the lot of any misfortunate man, beast, or plant upon earth, the Pinaster, on the other hand, has been the lucky recipient of praises sung by poets, of thanks- giving lip-service expressed by growers, and of high hopes entertained by theorists. Whether there is any mysterious property of air and climate that gives an enabling power to the tree, that boasts one whorl of branchlets, buds, and cones per annum, to prosper in our island home, and withholds it from the other little coterie, that goes one better in this direction and produces more than one whorl per annum, we dare not hazard opinion. Nothing under a Royal Commission—and most Royal Commissions indulge in a minority report —appointed by the Board of Agriculture would dare essay a final pronouncement on this question, but appearances rather point that way. Possibly their finding would be that whereas most of the Banksia, five out of seven, come from the Atlantic side of America, and those districts that Professor Sargent in his conspectus marks out under the letter A, and describes as north-eastern, only one of the Pinasters comes from that tabooed district, and that is the P. Resinosa, which alone of them is labelled as unsatisfactory here. Of the Banksia and the seven (without varieties) enumerated as belonging to it, only two appear to be moderately hardy, while of the Pinaster group, with its formidable array of independent varieties (i.e. the Austrian numbered as a variety of the Corsican), all except the P. Resinosa, and that ominously from the fatal Atlantic side of America, are good growers with us. 54 PINES P. PINnEA AND PINASTER I saw far off the dark top of a pine Look like a cloud—a slender stem, the tie That bound it to its native earth, ... Worpswortn, The Pine on Monte Mario at Rome. The Prneza (Stdne, or Umbrella Pine) and the PINASTER (Maritime, or Cluster Pine) run somehow concurrently in some quite well-constituted minds. Doubtless they should not do so, but it often happens, for all that, that a tree-lover, prating on trees, gets badly mixed up upon the question of their different individualities. He is often prone to drift towards a non-compos-mentis state of bewilderment as to which is which. When he talks of the one, often as not he means the other; and when he is thinking of this other he wanders orally away on to the afore- mentioned. Perhaps it is the similarity of names, added to the similarity of locality, that they affect, which is responsible for this Didymus doubt, and which exercises a beguiling effect upon the dewdro=: logist’s mental equilibrium. The coarser leaves of the Pinaster, and its habit of leaving the remains of its buds’ scales on the shoots, ought to assist us in arriving at its identity. In addition to this, the white cottony appearance of the leaf sheath, and the kind of fimbricated “ frou- frou ” effect created about it, makes it quite different from anything else of its find. Both these trees have a separate claim to a notoriety of their own: the P. Pinea as an artist’s model, and the conspicuous feature of a foreground in many a Turner and Claude landscape, the Pinaster as the all-conqueror of the sands; and the way it contrives to get a grip of those sands with its long perpendicular roots, with undenied resolution and_ consolidating -effect, must excite the admiration of all who deem THE SCOTS PINE 55 tenacity of purpose a virtue. Indeed, it seems as much at home upon a seashore as a sand-born courser ambling over the inhospitable tracts of his native wastes in Arabia Deserta. By Pliny the Second, and in modern days by the Portuguese, the Pinaster has been called and regarded as the Wild Pine, while the Pinea has been looked upon and designated as its cultivated counterpart. Indeed, so far has this idea been carried, and to such alow depth from the position of a stately tree has the P. Pinea sunk, that at one time it was associated linguistically with the common and garden Pine Apple. It might be adduced that it is hardly as derogatory to the dignity of a Maritime Pine that a Pine Apple should put forward a questionable claim of relationship to it, as it is that an outcast nettle should have established a direct kinsmanship to our stately Elm. It should be added, that, in spite of the indignities, both have soared above and survived the ignominy of the inferences. Tue Scots PINE The Scottish Fir In murky file rears his inglorious head, And blots the fair horizon. Mason, P. SyLvestris (Scots Pine) is the indigenous repre- sentative of that old-established trio of Conifers in our midst that go by the names of Scots, Austrian, and Corsican. The three are evidently trees of affinity, but of different geographical habitat. They require here but little comment and less explanation. We should like to record that we are by no means in agreement with the drift of the poet Mason’s idea of it. We have only quoted it as an expression of opinion that 56 PINES evidently held good in the darker ages of a century ago, and an opinion that was endorsed and quoted, more or less as an eternal truth, by Uvedale Price, an acknowledged authority on the subject of landscape gardening in his day, some thirty or forty years after. “* De gustibus non est disputandum”’ (‘‘ there is no disputing about tastes ”’), but the idea of the Scots Pine as a blot upon the landscape would find no acceptance in present-day tastes. ‘ This maybe, i is how, three or four generations ago, some talked in their haste and saw with unprophetic eye the career to be of a tree that has ever since never failed to be anything but a joy and delight in life to the scenery lovers of the generations that succeeded them. We have recorded these old-spoken opinions, not because we deem them to be reflective of the spirit even of that age, but only because they happened to be the didactic utterances of a fashionable few who in their day were looked up to as a “ light in the path and a lantern unto the feet’ of the planting world. What we say to-day, and are convinced that the vox popult would re-echo the sentiment, that as the sun never ceases to gladden the heart of man because it is the same old superannuated sun that has gladdened it for thousands of years, so sure is it that our enduring old ally of landscape effect, the Scots Pine, despite the antiquity of its reign among us, will never fail to gladden, for centuries to come, the hearts of future generations, even as it has rejoiced ours; and we feel sure that our wish, strengthened in belief by the hopeful words of a modern poet (E. M. Mills, published in Country Life, and quoted below), will be fulfilled, and that even if man neglect his duty of replanting them, Nature will step in and perform the task, and future genera- tions witness what we have seen : THE SCOTS PINE 57 The Little Firs—the self-sown Firs—that yet in days to be, Shall lift plumed heads against the sky— Shall stretch red, slender trunks on high— Shall stand, each one a Forest Tree. If all the people in Great Britain, who only knew one tree in the world by sight, in and out of season, and were, under penalty, enforced to sally forth, point out, and give a name to that tree which of all others they knew best, some go per cent., we think, would pitch upon the P. Sylvestris, and in so doing they would probably when they spoke of it—as did | the poet Mason—employ the misnomer Scotch Fir, in direct defiance of all Scotsmen’s susceptibilities and all arboricultural authorities, who very properly have impressed us with the desirability of alluding to it as the Scots Pine. It is a tree that, if we were to write about at length, we could not say too much in its praise and honour, and it is a tree that if we were to try and explain we could not say too little, for there is no need to hammer on at that which we all are aware is driven home. We could not, in our desire to give it glorification, rise to the height of the occasion, and we could not, if we tried, hope to reach to the depth of its historical antiquity with us. It is too well known and appreciated by all to need further dissertation upon here. The name implies its origin, and the whereabouts of its localities of its native heath. From the forests and Highlands, We come, we come, once wrote Shelley, and these words tell the tale of their indigenous home. 58 PINES P. DENSIFLORA AND P. THUNBERGII.— Like strange mechanical grotesques Making fantastic arabesques, O. Wixve. These are the trees that the Japanese in particular exercise all their topiarian ingenuity upon, by trimming, distorting, or dwarfing them into all sorts and shapes of whimsical ornamentation. ‘They are the Red and Black Pine respectively, and also the so-called Japanese representatives of our Scots and Austrian Pine respectively. As the date of their landing here was some fifty or sixty years ago, in the seed-stage, they have not had quite a sufficient time to make a reputation for themselves. Both seem hardy, and the P. Thunbergii is fast heaping up for itself—as surely even as it gathers together by the power attraction of its roots, the shifting sands of the sea—a character as a coast-line success that threatens to dispute the sovereignty of the sand dunes with its long-established presiding monarch, the Maritime Pine. Both these Pines have been ladled out in time past by nurserymen as P. Massoniana, and wrongly called. Lambert’s P. Massoniana is, as far as we can gather, still rather a mystery. It is probably a long-leaved more southern growing Chinese tree, and if it is in cultivation—and some of us fondly imagine that we have it—it is too early days to discuss its possibilities. P. Thunbergii is most noticeable for its curiously twisted leaves, but the similarly twisted leaves of the - P. Densiflora are of softer texture than the P. Thun- bergii. The long filaments of the basal sheath, which are shared in common by both, mark them out from other two-leaved Pines—as, for instance, the Scots, or Corsican Pine. Then there is the difference of barks, the one (P. Densiflora) red and the other (P. Thunbergii) dark grey ; the colours of their shoots P, RESINOSA 59 and leaves, which are given in the Table, are charac- teristics which all help to solve the problem of identity. The few specimens of the P. Densiflora that we have come across in this part of the world appear as if they might have been aptly called Densifolia, on account of the remarkable density of their foliage. The branchlets in their equipment remind one of a half-clipped tail of a poodle dog, with a cultivated and thick tuft at the extremity. P. ReEsinosa is cited as the S. American repre- sentative of our P. Laricio, with these differences : it has a longer basal sheath and marginal resin canals. Both of them, be it observed, rather occult differences, that only appeal to the few rather than to the many. One point that, however, may appeal to the many is that it is most improbable that they will come across it in England. It has earned the reputation of being unsuitable to our country. There is one question we suggest for consideration without attempting to make satisfactory answer as to these “ alternates ’ of other countries. Contro- versy has often been rife upon the probable single or multiple origin of many of the beasts of creation. I do not know what may be the views of the learned as to the single and common, or the multiple and independent origin of Conifers, or even the single and multiple origin of these similarities of species ; but if P. Laricio and its affinities, P. Leucodermis, Sylves- tris, Thunbergii, Densiflora, Resinosa, inter alia, had once a single origin, and then were scattered to the four corners of the earth by the four winds of heaven and other agencies, and if after that they showed ‘first slight and then gradually growing changes in process of evolution, according to their different environments, what are we to expect in the way of improved commercial timber, by retrans- 60 PINES planting them in quantity away from their naturalized or native soil, where they have set up for themselves an individuality of their own, and in accordance with the requirements of the various regions in which they have become settlers? Despite this inference on the contrary side, some of such varieties have survived their transportation well enough to justify extended attempts, and our repeating of invitations to ‘‘ At Homes ”’ here. P. Laricio, THE CorsicAN PINE.— I wandered lonely where the Pine Trees made Against the bitter East their barricade. WHITTIER. It is now some seventy years since our ancestors planted Corsican Pines, and euphemistically wrote of them as the Altissima Pines from Corsica. Though not approaching in grandeur of size this tree in its native land, the trees here have attained a greater height than any other Pines, including the Scots Pine, planted in those days. To give our own opinion upon the tree, we should sum up the situation abruptly with the remark that while we all like them intensely, the rabbits with an equal intensity dislike them. We should like—by way of an obiter dictum— to recount a little homely experience on this alleged distaste of the Corsican Pine on the part of the rabbit. Some time since, from where I write, when rabbits were thick upon the ground, as thick as Milton’s “autumnal leaves that strewed the brooks in Val- lombrosa,” a young Corsican was planted for the sole purpose of offering temptation at a spot where there passed and repassed, in numbers considerable, a host of hungry rodent rabbits, in quest of evening meal and evening drink. Rabbits, it was generally supposed, like many another frail specimen of the animal kingdom, were THE CORSICAN PINE 61 more able to resist anything than. temptation, and dubious opinions were expressed as to the strength of the temptation that a young Corsican might offer to the gratification of their recurrent appetite. The majority prophesied a short shrift and a speedy end to the sacrificial victim, and the majority were wrong. To-day, when the rabbits have since been almost improved off the face of this plot, the tree, as a respect- ably grown and ornamental member of the Society of Pines, remains, and is a monumental evidence to the distasteful qualities of its flavour; and the excellency of their discrimination would be endorsed, we feel sure, by any species of man or superman who would care to try conclusions with the bitter ex- perience that a taste of its leaves produces. Possibly this trial by taste, as a trial of vintages after the gathering of the grapes, might have some influence in deciding between a Corsican and Austrian Pine. We have referred in the Table to the difference as to shape, bark, and leaves, and in an old tree the first two of this trio of differences are the most convincing. Many complaints have been received as to losses incurred, owing to the long tap root, in transplanting Corsicans. Professors from schools of forestry, and other wiseacres who have made the experiment, bid us plant them late in the spring, very late, even to the time when summer is upon us. When fuller grown this long tap root may have been of great service to the stability of the tree at a later date. Speaking from a limited experience, upon the point of view of quantity, of trees under immediate observation, but not from a limited or impersonal experience of the force and fury of the gales and winds (I write in 1916), the Corsican has withstood the test when Scots Pines, Weymouth Pines, Silver Firs, and Spruce Trees, and many Hard-woods have strewn the ground with havoc and derelicts. 62 PINES P. Laricio var. Austriaca or NicRICANS.—For the Austrian Pine I hold no brief as a planter in the Midlands. It may have its uses and serve purposes in barren places, on sandy shores, where winds unkind blow hard and cruel, and other inhospitable elsewheres of a like nature, for all I know to the contrary. The fact remains that it is neither so prepossessing in appearance nor sought after so much for sawbench requirements as its congeners the Scots and Corsican Pines. If there is any truth in this summing up of its qualities, it can only be remarked that it ought to be, in most places, discarded in favour of its affinities. P. LEucopERMIS has been generally looked upon as the Alpine form of the P. Laricio. It hails from Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Montenegro. It was only introduced to Kew in 1894. Experimentalists are trying them here, and they seem very promising. In the heights of their own country they appear equally to scorn the summer sun and winter snow. If our English hospitality may not be able to con- scientiously guarantee the former and more attractive side of the picture, it can fearlessly vouch for the counter-attractive. It can offer in profusion—given time—hard winters, late frosts, snowstorms, and cold winds. It has bleak pastures in plenty, on high lands and waste places in lofty situations, all adapted eminently to the more abundant presence of tree-life. If this is not so, a false doctrine has been dinned in our ears, cast in our teeth, and thrust down our throats, over and over again, from the day when Evelyn, in 1662, wrote his Sylva, to the present time, when the latest contribution on the subject was penned and produced by Professor Stebbing. From the tree’s historical antecedents, or anything that we can learn of it, what Pine, or other Conifer, we ask, is there better constituted to make experiment THE MOUNTAIN PINE 63 with in these direful places than this Leucodermis tree and mountain product. from Herzegovina and Balkan heights. P. Montana and Conrorta, the Mountain Pine of Europe, and the Lodge Pole Pine of America, to say nothing of several other aliases that they and their formidable list of varieties indulge in, remain the only members of the Pinaster group left unnoticed. The Montana Pines take their name from lofty regions whence they come, the Contorta from the often apparent curious twist of its young shoots. We have given in the Table a series of their differ- ences, and, acting on the Cornish proverb ‘“‘ Enough is enough, and too much is a plenty,” we will en- deavour not to improve upon the occasion by pur- poseless repetition, and only refer to the cone structure part of the question. The Contorta, like several of the three-leaved Pines, and the Muricata among the two-leaved speci- mens, sticks to its cones, or its cones stick to it, whichever you will, for many seasons. The P. Muricata belongs to the multi-nodal group of the Banksia clan, while the P. Contorta is only a one- whorl producer of branchlets a year, or a member of the uni-nodal group. The P. Muricata has longer leaves, and the P. Contorta is a practically short- leaved tree, so a little similarity of habit and cone should cause no discomfiture in the calculations of the man who would give them their name. The often twisted young shoots-——-whence came the name contorted—and the persistent cone habit differentiate it from the Montana. Both the Con- torta and the Murrayana, with their many stems springing low down on the trunk from the tree, produce a candelabra effect of growth that the Bungeana and some of the Thuyas sometimes affect. 4 64 PINES P. MontTANA var. PuMILIO.—- Where the hill-side slopes from the covert to the peat-stained stream below, Small and of no reputation, the children of Nature grow: On broken banks—and ridges—and the fringe of the bog beneath— And out on the open spaces of the wide, eternal heath, E. M. MItts.. The P. Montana, like the Pinus Cembra, has its prostrate and creeping representative. The Montana elects to call his miniature edition by the name of Pumilio, while the Cembra has selected the word Pumila as an appellation for the pygmies of his tribe. In point of fact, and when translated, they are one and the same thing, these two words Pumilio and Pumilus, and what they signify also is one and the same thing, and that is “ dwarf,’’ or if you like to make use—and the dictionaries allow you the alternative— of an old word, fallen into disuse but retaining a good old Shakespearian ring about it, you may translate either of them, Pumilio or Pumilus, as Dandy-prat. Both these dwarf trees have a habit of forming them- selves into a thicket of creeping, trunkless, tangled undercover, which constitutes a retreat that the foxes and wilder beasts of the country-side frequent and adore, but through which glorious man can with but difficulty crawl his way. Two scenes in illustration of such a growth flit before my memory. The one a scene from Nature, a thick cover of P. Montana var. Pumilio, planted some years ago by J. Williams, of Scorrier (Cornwall), the other a portrayal of art in picture form, of the Cembran Dwarf Pine (the Pumila) growth, at some 6,700 ft. above sea-level in Japan, and on the sides of a mountain named Ontake in the Island of Hondo. The photograph referred to was taken by E. H. Wilson in 1916, and appears in the publications of the Arnold Arboretum, No. 8, entitled Conifers and P. MONTANA 65 Taxads of Japan, and makes a particularly interesting illustration of the curiosities of coniferous growths. Another illustration of this curious tree is figured in The Gardener's Chronicle, May 5th, 1917, and shows the disposition of the main stems, extending them- selves flatly along the ground, and is commented on there by Professor Augustine Henry. All these shorter and more scrubby-growing two- leaved Pines I refer to the P. Echinata and Virginiana (or Mitis and Inops), Banksiana, Contorta, and Montana. All have their individualities set forth in the Table, so that in theory they ought, with a little working out, to create no puzzlement in the mind of the identifier ; but, as a matter of fact they do, as many have borne me witness. The insur- mountable difficulty is their rarity and the want of object-lessons. If we could occasionally see them all together side by side, difficulties would vanish like snow on a river. Nature does not, however, permit a mastery of her secrets by any such simple, helpful processes as these, and perhaps for some reasons it is for the best, since that which is acquired easily and swiftly is often as easily and swiftly forgotten. A perfected Pinetum, set before us in classification array, with bud and flower and cone concomitant complete, would perhaps be a duller study in reality than we imagine, and like a limiting of the lesson- books to dictionaries and encyclopedias. Of such works, all know, we can make valuable use for refer- ence and reminder, but cannot hope to build up from them alone a lasting interest in any subject, cult, or science. A campaign to conquer the comparative anatomies of the Conifers has to be undertaken with more Fabian methods. II ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS (OF THE NATURAL ORDER OF CONIFER, or THE FAMILY PINACE, or THE TRIBE ABIETINE&, OF THE SUB-TRIBE SAPINE, AND GENUS ABIES) I remember, I remember, The fir trees tall and high, I used to think their slender spires Were close against the sky. Hoop, THE writer goes on to apologize for this illusion of his youth and describes it as'a “‘ childish ignorance.” We, on the contrary, should pronounce it a very sound sylvicultural observation that matured wisdom would faithfully endorse. How many tree lovers are there who have not, at one time or another of their life, been prevailed upon by some enthusiastic host, bursting with pardonable pride and parish patriotism, to make a joint expedition afoot for the purpose of viewing the giant wonder tree of the country-side, a mighty Fir, that has sur- passed all compeers; and who, perhaps, after a toil and moil of many mountainous miles, have not at last been regaled with the sight of an old. familiar friend, in the undisguised form of the Common Silver Fir. This tree, which is unquestionably. most divinely tall, the most divinely exalted type of its species with us, rejoices in a super-growth that so far outrivals 66 CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUPS (SILVER FIRS) 67 in height all other competitors. Whether they will in turn be out-topped by sky-scraping Sequoias in this country, or some other competitor of their own genus, like the A. Forrestii, A. Recurvata, or the A. Delavayii, hailing from internal China, is a question for future generations to pronounce opinion upon. At present our homespun Silver Fir (A. Pectinata) towers far and above its companions of the wood- lands, and stands out amongst its fellows as a demi-god Triton among minnows. To those who would essay to dissociate the Silver Fir family, one species from another species, we would humbly suggest working them out by the groups into which they have been arranged by standard authorities, and we would submit to the reader the following points which are mainly respon- sible for their inclusion in the various groups to which they have been assigned. — Arrangement of Leaves.—(1) Whether they are radially (all round the stem) arranged as are the leaves in the Spruces. (N.B.—Group I, only these, the A. Pinsapo and A. Cephalonica, are thus arranged.) (2) Whether they are pectinately arranged, like a comb, as particularly and ideally in the A. Grandis in Group II. (3) Whether they are less, strictly speaking, pectinately and more V-shaped by arrange- ment, and if V-shaped, whether they are acutely divided or whether their leaves gape out more widely apart, rather after the manner of horns of cattle, as do some in Group ITI. (4) Whether they have, as in Group III, median leaves on the top, instead of the bare parting in Group II. Other points in shape and habit of leaf, apart from any question of arrangement to be noticed: (a2) whether the median leaves are as long as or shorter than the lower-placed leaves ;_ (2) which way these median leaves point (all except in A, 6 68 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS Numidica, in which they point backwards, point for- wards); (c) whether these median leaves arise from the branchlets straight up, as, for instance, in A. Ama- bilis, or whether they are at first appressed—that is to say, adhere for the first part of their length to the branchlets—before shooting up in a forward direction from the stem, as in the A. Nobilis and Magnifica ; (d) apex of leaf, whether sharply bifid (as e.g. Firma, Homolepis, Webbiana, etc.), or emarginate, or less sharply and more obtusely notched (as e.g. Pectinata, etc.), or whether entire, with unbroken margin (as e.g. Nobilis, Concolor, Magnifica, Lasiocarpa, Re- ligiosa); or whether the apex is rounded, obtuse, truncate, acute, or spine-tipped, as in Bracteata. Apex Apex Apex - Apex Apex Apex cere Rounded Truncate Bifida’ two Spine Acute notched notched sharp points dipped Concolor Nobilis Veitchii Firma Bracteata se Lasiocarpa Magnifica Amabilis Brachyp shyla Pinsapo A. Religiosa very ohebely (apex more sometimes) pen-nibbed Cilicia shape. Numidica Homolepis Stomata.—Whether they show white stomatiferous bands on one side of the leaf or on both sides, as do the Spruces (Picez) upon all sides. The Silver Firs (Abies) are rarely stomatiferous on both sides of the leaf, and in ‘instances where they are, often not whole-heartedly but in broken bands, or only on the leaves of the higher boughs. The following are the exceptions4imong Silver Firs that show stomata on both sides of the leaf: Lowiana, Concolor, Lasiocarpa, Arizonica, Nobilis, Magnifica, Numidica, and Pinsapo, also the Cephalonica—but inconspicuously, except with the aid of magnifying glasses. I should like to add to these the A. Sacha- linensis, although it does not generally appear to: be CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUPS OF SILVER FIRS 69 included in this list by authorities. A specimen sent me distinctly showed them. Branchlets and Shoots, appearance and composition of.—Points of difference to be noted: (1) the colour of the shoot ; (2) whether downy or showing here and there evidences of scattered pubescence, or without any pubescence at all—that is to say, glabrous ; (3) whether in composition it is corrugated and fissured, or whether it is smooth, or perhaps in some instances slightly wavy, but not fissured with deepened grooves, as are the representatives of the corrugated clique. This difference, as between what is corrugated and slightly wavy, we own reads somewhat perplexingly. It is far more clearly explained in the illustrations appended than by any mere little collection of words strung together by an amateur student, with best intent of purpose but with an acknowledged in- capacity to make explicit this particular point by use of script alone ; but if these illustrations are even cursorily examined with the accompanying text, they ought to be of assistance to the aims of any identifier. The difference between corrugated and smooth surface calls for little more strain on the powers of perception of ordinary man to discern than an opinion invited upon the difference in outward and superficial shape of a roof of corrugated iron and a covering of flat undented sheet-iron on some wayside farm building. Out of the twenty-six species of Silver Firs that have been called attention to, eight are corrugated, or if another simile be permitted, shaped more after the manner of wavVes in a choppy sea than the more gradual and gentle gradients of a ridge-and- furrow field in a Midland county, which would be more descriptive of the branchlet explained and portrayed as of undulate surface. 70 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS Fifteen are smooth-surfaced in branchlet and twig, and may be, to pursue the metaphor, compared to thé unruffled surface of a mill pond, and in one or two instances, when described as wavy, likened to the little ripples we sometimes see making commotion in still waters which the winds of heaven. have agitated. Three of these Silver Firs, just to complicate attempts at finality of elucidation: and make con- fusion more confounded, change their .coats or rinds at different stages of life, from smooth to rough or from rough to smooth. Two of.this trio of per- versities show signs—more in accord with the laws of Nature—of a more roughened exterior as they get older, while one, as befits its name Religiosa, becomes more softened thereupon as it advances in life. We append list and illustrations in exemplification of these different surface characteristics of branchlets among the Silver Firs. - TWIGS AND BRANCHLETS CORRUGATED AND FISSURED Group I Group III Pinsapo (slightly). Sachalinensis, Group II Group V Firma. Numidica (slightly corrugated). Homolepis (less corrugated 2nd and 3rd years), Group VI Brachyphylla (deeply). Lasiocarpa (more fissured 2nd Webbiana. year), TWIGS AND BRANCHLETS SMOOTH, OR UNDULATE AND SLIGHTLY WAVY Group I Amabilis, halonica, — Veitchii, Cephalonica ae Grovp II ; Bracteata, a Group IV Grandis, Nobilis. Lowiana, Magnifica. e Satacor tag, Group V Balsamea. Cilicia. Group III Group VI Nordmanniana, Concolor. 70] A. WEBBIANA,. A. BRACTEATA. A. GRANDIS. A. MARIESII. Fic. I. ILLUSTRATIONS IN EXEMPLIFICATION OF THE DIFFERENT SURFACE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRANCHLETS OF SILVER Firs. A. PINSAPO AND CEPHALONICA 71 UNDECIDED Group III . Group VI Religiosa (1st year corrugated; | Pindrow (smooth, but slightly 2nd year smooth). fissured 2nd year). Mariesii (smooth, but slightly fissured when older). ABIES. GROUP I (OF RADIALLY ARRANGED LEAVES) A. PINSAPO AND CEPHALONICA The Spanish Pinsapo and the Greek Cephalonica practise the rites of unorthodoxy in their observances of Silver Fir rules, with a defiance that asks for expulsion. Their leaves are radially arranged, have spiny tips, and show white stomata bands on both surfaces, and are attenuated towards the base, where, like the Pinsapo, they take their rest on little green supports. So far they are fashioned after the manner of the Spruce tree family. What, then, is it that entitles them to rank among the Abies ? In the first place their cones are erect and dehiscent. In the second place the situation of their leaves is in accordance with the traditions of the Silver Fir. When pulled off they leave a circular scar, as is explained previously. These two points tip the beam in favour of the Abies, but it must have been a close thing at one time, we imagine, and a case for the referee to be called in. The Pinsapo takes its name from a region in Spain; the Cephalonica from the Greek Island Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea. The rampant unorthodoxy of these two Abies simplifies the matter of their identity if it does nothing else. The much harder, shorter, lighter- tinted, broader, and aggressively sticking-out rigid leaves of the Pinsapo prevent any misconception arising as to which is which of these two stable com- panions. The new twigs of the Pinsapo are, we 72 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS should have considered, rather more of an orange than brown colour as generally described, and as for the prominences of their slightly fissured surface, they are more after the manner of eminences in the roads of fenlands, where the gradients are so obscure that surveyors can hardly put a figure to them, and travellers in their locomotive experiences fail to observe them. The leaves are thicker nearer the base than are those of the Cephalonica, which are markedly narrowed. On both they appear as if situated upon little green plinths, or stands, and when detached leave behind the orthodox round scar of the Abies. While the stomata of the Pinsapo are pretty clear to the naked eye, the Cephalonica stomata on the upper side call for the use of the magnifying-glass to bring them into notice. Both trees merit the universal recommendation to plant bestowed upon them by the authorities. GROUP II A. BracTEaTa, GRANDIS, Lowiana, Firma, Homo- LEPIS, BRACHYPHYLLA, PECTINATA, WEBBIANA, BALSAMEA, FRASERI Group II consists of Silver Firs that are described as V-shaped, while the members of Group III .are credited with median leaves arranged on the upper side of the shoot. : The first thing to accomplish a mastery over is: what is meant by and what constitutes a V-shaped depression, and what appearance the Group III described as possessed of median leaves on the top presents, and even what is meant by median leaves and where do they come in in the story. We will try to briefly explain them both, A. BALSAMEA AND FRASERI 73 A pectinate arrangement, by which is meant leaves on the lateral branches shaped after the teeth of a comb, should give one the idea of a flat and horizontal arrangement of leaves. Often if you turn the branchlet over, it answers the description truly enough as far as the lower side is concerned, but on the top side they vary, and do not convey the idea of regularity that you are accustomed to see in the teeth of the dressing-table article. V-shaped is when the upper leaves assume the form and lines of the alphabetical letter. A succession of them arrayed close together, if you look down their line, gives the appearance as if a plough-share had drilled a furrow down their middle. At the bottom of the furrow the stem is visible, and this parting, as on the human head of hair, is sometimes narrow, sometimes wider, according to circumstance or the age of the owner. When upon this vacant furrow another crop of leaves grows from the stem, these are called median leaves, and very properly, as they grow in the middle. Trees thus equipped are described in Group III. A. Batsamea and A. Fraseri.—This Group II consists of some ten species, all of which, with the exception of Balsamea and Fraseri, are quite likely to be met with in Pinetums. These two, then, can be dismissed with a few words. We can almost com- mence with them, and end with them, by a poetical reference from Longfellow : Give me of your balsam, O fir tree, Of your balsam and your resin. Seemingly it contained some very useful essential in the construction of Hiawatha’s canoe, and from the description we may conclude that the value of this resinous fir was held in high estimation by the natives who lived in its vicinity and freely appropriated its uses, which included medicinal extracts and oil of fir 74 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS obtained from its bark. A. FRASERI was introduced - here in 1811. It is a short-lived tree, and probably no living specimens of that period are in existence now. Its native countries are the Alleghany Mountains in S.-W. Virginia, N. Carolina, and E. Tennessee. We will now take the members of Group II seriatim and in order, as placed by Elwes and Henry in the Trees of Great Britain. A. BRACTEATA presentsso many obvious singularities that no one need be troubled with any misconceptions as to its identity after a first introduction. Its leaves are spiny-tipped, the only one of the tribe which claims this very pointed distinction. They are very long; from tip to tip they span some 5% inches against the 14 inches or so of the Common Silver Fir. Its unique, long, spindle-shaped, light- coloured bud, though not quite so long and more rotund at the base, recalls the appearance of a Beech bud. Yet the cone presents a weirder appearance than ‘all other strange aberrations of the Fir family put together. It has the porcupine appearance of a small cushion stuffed with very long pins. These long, protruding, leaf-like scales are exserted bracts, a name given to those never fully developed leaves that surround the fruit or cones of the tree at its early stages, and sometimes, especially in this tree and the Douglas, have a way of poking their noses through the scales of the fully developed cone and appearing in different forms ; in the case of a Douglas in a Neptune trident form, in the case of the Bracteata in the form of a thin bent wire an inch and a half long. The result is an uncanny quaintness of appearance that makes them look like nothing on earth and unlike anything upon trees. It is from these bracts that the trees derive their name, and the word ‘“‘bract ”’ A. BRACTEATA AND GRANDIS 75 in turn derives its name from the Latin word bractea, which originally meant a thin plate or leaf of gold metal. A. GrRanpis, or Giant Fir, rejoices in rather a pretentious title, which it, however, contrives to live up to in its native country; and its native country may be defined as the coast regions of British Colum- bia and the coast States of Western America, Oregon, and California. There it out-tops the highest of its kith and kin among Silver Firs; but among our little lot the Common Silver Fir (A. Pectinata) reigns supreme of its race. The A. Grandis was introduced about 1850, the A. Pectinata about A.D. 1600 ; so far, then, the championship must be regarded as undecided and any finality of opinion for the present so far upon the subject as nonproven. With us it is recognised as in the first rank of quick growers, and we might go so far as to bracket these two first, Grandis and Douglas, as Senior Wranglers in the field of such a competition. It will stand being planted under the shade of other trees. In spite of a character for deep-root system, like many other quick growers it has its drawbacks. The root growths do not quite seem to keep pace in proportion with the trees’efforts in sky-high directions. The in- evitable result of this is that they inherit a liability © to topple over at any unusual provocation or extra dose delivered on the part of the elements. We speak from the bitter experience of the 1915 Boxing-Day gales. Without any excuse of want of sheltering influence a promising young A. Grandis of some twenty summers’ experience of its position, elected, to the surprise, dismay, and mortification of its many friends and admirers, to measure its some 50 to 60 feet of length upon the ground in which we had all believed it to be firmly embedded. 76 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS The ideally pectinate arrangement of its long grass-green shiny leaves, which span from tip to tip a good 3 inches, its upper rank leaves half the length of the lower, its notched apex and clearly-showing white stomata bands, all conspire to help identifica- tion. Again, its olive-green and sometimes orange-brown tinted branchlets, with what is generally described as reddish, but sometimes appears as almost white, pubescence; are also characteristic. Its grey bark, with here and there the appearance of faint orange tints, is smooth but for being plentifully covered with blisters, which when broken emit a most fragrant flow of turpentine, of a most gratifying nature to the scent-sense of man and woman. There are other lesser aids to the recognition of a tree that future generations may have more to say about than we have, at such a comparatively early stage of its existence with us. A. Lowrana.— At every impulse of the moving breeze The fir grove murmurs with a sea-like sound. : WorbDswortn. Sometimes we have heard the A. Lowiana compared with the A. Grandis. But the A. Lowiana has its white stomatic bands on both surfaces of its leaves, while the A. Grandis has stomata only upon the lower surface. This should at once in theory—if theory goes for anything—dispose of any suspicion of their connection. If another proof were wanted, there exists the fact that the leaves in the upper rank of the Lowiana are nearly as long as those in the lower rank, while in the A. Grandis they are only a little more than half the length. Most of us have been taught that if we wish to accumulate a little mental confusion between any two trees, A. LOWIANA 77 and are unable to obtain it elsewhere, an excellent opportunity is afforded to us in instituting com- parisons between the A. Lowiana and the A. Concolor, and if you want to drag in another and make con- fusion more confounded, the A. Lasiocarpa can be called in to make a third. With this latter tree we have dealt with in its own place, and tried to show that the likeness is merely a nominal mistake and devoid of any reality. As between A. Lowiana and Concolor, our instruc- tions are that the apex of the leaf in the Lowiana is notched and grooved, while A. Concolor is not notched and not grooved. This, if it holds good and is subject to no saving clauses, equivocations, or exceptions, is a clear and final distinction, and one moreover within easy scope of the ability of the humblest observers. The A. Lowiana belongs to a more northern tree region than the A. Concolor. The A. Concolor has the longer leaf, and both indulge in leaves with inward curls of a sickle-shaped form, and looking as if they had been subjected to an application of the curling- tongs from the hands of an expert barber. A habit which, as has been explained, saves them from exposing so much leaf surface to the sun. The Concolor is of a more glaucous colour, with a thicker distribution of leaves upon branchlets than the Lowiana. Both seem tolerably good doers in our climate. A. Firma (the Common Fir of S. Japan). A. HoMoLepis (the Mountain Firs [Dake A. BRACHYPHYLLA Momi] of Central Japan). We have here a triplet of Japanese trees, which have more than done their fair share in creating perplexities and heart-burnings among the leading lights of such subjects, Whether they should have 78 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS been more appropriately likened in number to twins than triplets, and whether consensus of opinion will some day reduce them to a dual state, is in anticipa- tion of the results of our remarks on the subject. We will only generally add that if twins are hard to know apart, a@ fortiori triplets cannot be expected to do anything but treble difficulties. The first point that we would impress is that they are trees of uncommon appearance with us. They are not the sort of plants that you are in the least likely to stumble across in an everyday walk, or even after Sabbath-day journeyings, or to alight upon in a full-grown glory of adolescence, or in their fuller maturity of a cone-clad age. But since they are Conifers that grow in England they come into our story, and must not be omitted from the programme of our curriculum. A. Firma.—The Common Fir of S. Japan was once —notwithstanding the fact that it was a name equally applicable to several others—appositely called A. Bifida, on account of the two very evident little sharp points that surmount the apex of the leaf (vide illustration, Abies Introductory, p. 68). It occupies in its own country regions the same sort of position that the A. Pectinata occupies here, and that is, as its English name implies, the Common Silver Fir of the district. It is in that guise, and armed with credentials as an endemic or Common Fir of another country, that the A. Firma and all that pertains to it should be enshrined in our memory 1eady for recall if occasion offers. From our Common Fir it can be easily dissociated. While the Japanese has these sharp points at apex of leaf—and which we rightly or wrongly are desig- nating bifid, in contradistinction to the more un- A. FIRMA, HOMOLEPIS, BRACHYPHYLLA 79 dulating depression that we are calling notched or emarginate—has also corrugated or fissured shoots with pubescence in their grooves ; has also longer, thicker, broader leaves, of a lighter, almost yellow- grass-green colour, the Anglo-Saxon representative | (A. Pectinata), on the other hand, has less acutely notched or emarginate tops to leaf, of smaller size and dark-green colour, with pubescence scattered indiscriminately upon its smooth shoots. From these more nearly allied similarities, the A. Brachyphylla and Homolepis—which we will treat here, for the time being, as one and the same, or in inseparable Siamese-twin relationship—the A. Firma perhaps differs less, but very sufficiently, when we start to sum up his points. The A. Firma, as we have said, has pubescence in the grooves of his corrugated shoots, whereas the Brachyphylla-cum-Homolepis is devoid of anything of the sort. The leaves of the latter display very bright’ and conspicuous stomata on one side of the leaf, if not—and we say it with hesitancy, because it is not authoritatively admitted—occasionally a faint tracing of broken bands of stomata upon the other and upper-lying side. The stomata on the A. Firma, as the moon to the sun, are comparatively very dull affairs. They consist of two murky inconspicuous bands on one surface. Cones received from Japan manifest clear differ- ences. Those of the A. Firma are of more rotund and stumpy-looking proportions, larger at the base than the top, while the cones of the Brachyphylla | are of a uniform, cylindrical, more elongated shape. A few cones have appeared with us here and there, and in places the number of which you could count on one man’s fingers, but, in a general way and for the most part, instituting a hunt for them in England would be a vain quest, with little more chance of a 80 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS find than the Yankee’s memorable search for a black hat, on a dark night, when it was not there. We may add that the photographs in Clinton-Baker’s clarifying Illustrations of Conifers coincide with the shape of those referred to here, and tell their own story more faithfully than words express. A. BRACHYPHYLLA AND Homo.epis.—Many mis- givings upon two or three questions in connection with these so-named trees seem to have arisen, and pierced the very soul of the super-conscientious botanical exponent. That is, at least, how it appears to those who, with primitive instinct, have tried to learn by reading the lines, and between the lines, of what experts have written on this vexed question. By those who maintain their dual existence as two distinct trees, we are told that so far no Homolepis cone specimen has ever been plucked by human hands, or ever set eyes on by human being. This seems rather to indicate—if it points to anything— that when this missing link in the shape of a cone turns up, no true alibi will be found to have been set up, and affords argument more in favour of the conclusion that it is the same individual, in spite of the assumption of two names, perhaps slightly changed, but not anything in the shape even of a masquerading double, of a different nature and composition, that has obtruded its presence upon us farther afield, and tried to take us in by methods of duplicity. We can only say that if this fruitless peculiarity of dispensing with a cone-system exists, or is going to weary us by its continuance, the tree will be occupying among Conifers as unique and forlorn a position in its place upon our earth as the man compelled—in fantastic legend—to walk through. life without the companionship of a shadow. . To those who wish to puzzle out in entirety the A. BRACHYPHYLLA AND HOMOLEPIS 81 intricacies of this trio of trees, in all its ramifications and variations, there is still another upstart, so far unmentioned by us, to compete with, and it is called the Umbellata. This is a tree with leaves like the Brachyphylla and Homolepis, and with cones of the colour and substance of the A. Firma; in short, it reads as a halfway house between the two, and this is what probably spells its true story of an hybrid history. The queries, then, which trouble the mind of the more unsophisticated, and the questions that present themselves to the would-be unravellers of this tangle, seem to be very much after this pattern : (1) Are the Brachyphylla and Homolepis one and the same tree ? Some authorities of our day have answered to this “No,” distinctly if not quite emphatically, but still “No.” They maintain that certain slight obscure but sufficient differences exist between them. They quote the fact that the different positions of the resin ducts substantiates their case. From this view E. H. Wilson, after a recent journey to their native country, dissents. It is true that he does not refer to these resin-duct differences, but he assuredly saves the situation for some of us and simplifies the matter for those who flounder in the sea of doubt. There are many to whom resin ducts and their position are but the by-play of a hidden mystery. He (Wilson) further tells us that any little varia- tions of form or inconsistencies of habit are traits of character, traceable to those inconsistencies of age that all life, human and plant, is liable to, and this is an arrival at opinion of natural progression that all ethose in the sere and yellow are easily able to com- prehend, and that all those in the green of youth are too ready to jump at ribald conclusions upon, without any further encouragement from their seniors. 82 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS (2) What is the true story of yet another disturbing element on the scene in the shape called the Umbel- lata, whether it is a variety of the Brachyphylla and Homolepis (regarding them as one and the same plant), or whether it is a hybrid, as between them and the A. Firma? The latter, from evidence re- ceived, seems the likeliest solution of this vexed question. (3) Whether its presence as a new-comer in our midst has not added confusion to the scene, and given rise to the idea that four identities are in actual being—namely, Firma, Brachyphylla, Homolepis, Umbellata—whereas in fact only three are existent, Firma, Homolepis and the probably cross-bred Um- bellata. Tempus edax rerum. Time and experience some day may solve these knotty complications to the ' satisfaction of all, and attune the botanical world once more in a dull and an uninteresting blend of harmony upon these so far unresolved modulations. For the time being, the most convenient course to pursue, for all lovers of simplicity, is to follow Wilson, and to look upon them as one, to talk of them as one, and call them either Brachyphylla or Homolepis, but not Brachyphylla and Homolepis, as the spirit moves or fancy dictates The A. WesBIANA has not earned with us those credentials of hardiness that we might have looked for from a tree that came from Himalayan heights. The story of its failure here seems to be the want of constancy in our climatic programme. The com- plaint of such trees seems to be that we, as a country, exhibit a lamentable want of decision as to what sort of weather we are going to provide for them in the critical moments of early spring-time. And yet it comes from regions that must often experience a A. WEBBIANA 83 cold as intense as that of the historic winter in France, 1407, when, as it was solemnly declared, the frost was so bitter that at every third word the ink froze in the pens at the Court of Law, and arrested the recording of judgments. There are times when late frosts injure particularly the young trees, or perhaps what is worse, a perpetual visitation of cold winds browns and scarifies the senior members of the Pinetum with a cruelty that is positively heartless. Men, we are told, may some- times look on tempests and remain unshaken, but trees, unfortunately, are hardly as stoical. In its own country the A. Webbiana enjoys im- munity from inconstancy. From a hibernating stage of a winter spent under a deep snow, it emerges at a fixed date with clockwork regularity, to find itself warm and happy, under the promoting conditions of a blue rejoicing sky. That it finds our climate to be generally unaccommodating is unfortunate, since it is a tree that is all-beautiful without and as all-glorious: within, as those king’s daughters that we are told, upon the Psalmist’s authority, at a moment of time when his heart was inditing of a good matter, were fitted to enter king’s palaces. Its cones in their early stage are of a most attractive violet-purple colour. Its leaves on the underneath surface display the most vivid silvery whiteness of all well-known Conifers, so far; and in spirit of prophecy we venture a statement that their proxime accessit, or even conqueror, in colour scheme in years to come will be the new and lately named Chinese Silver Fir, A. Forrestii. Botanically and geographically the A. Webbiana has been menticned together with the A. Pindrow If the Pindrow is an affinity of it, all we can say is that, judging from outward appearances, it is a very. colourless edition of the A. Webbiana. As “ light a 84 ABIES, OR SILVERJFIRS excelleth darkness,” so does the Webbiana rise su- perior to the Pindrow in the vivid underneath of the leaf. The light-coloured branchlets of the Pindrow gleam at you between the leaves as they do in the Webbiana, but on close inspection they will be found to be composed of a softer and different surface than that of the corrugated Webbiana, but we have pointed out some differences, which in this case call for less mental confusion than such subjects often present. A. PECTINATA, OR COMMON SILVER Fir.— You may tire of mountains and rivers, you may tire of the sea, but you can never tire of trees, Lorp BEACONSFIELD, So spoke the departed statesman (more familiarly known as “ Dizzy ’’) of the Victorian era. There are some of us old enough to recall a cartoon in Punch that depicted the eminent statesman swung in a hammock under a tree in his garden, and mur- muring self-complacently a measure of an Ariel’s spirit song : Dizzily, dizzily let me drowse Under the shadow of Hughenden boughs, Though he, Lord Beaconsfield and ex-Prime: Minis- ter of a Victorian age, was probably reposing in Virgilian attitude, after the manner of Tityrus, under the covering of a spreading beech on this particular occasion, we take it that the quoted expression of his untiring admiration for trees referred rather to the trees of landscapes generally than to any tree in particular. Be that as it may, it was a high compli- ment he paid to them; and if any Conifer deserves its share of the praise bestowed more than other, it THE COMMON SILVER FIR 85 is the Common Silver Fir, the mightiest and the highest of them all. As the Common Silver Fir is always a forthcoming feature on most wayside and woodland scenes, we have very little to say further of it here, unless it be to enter a caveat for the sake of the less initiated, and warn them not to be betrayed into any surprise, or deluded at any critical moment, by the different aspects and variety show that the leaves of this tree sometimes offer to observers, according to the different layers of its branches on which they grow. While on the lower stages they wear an orderly, combed and neatly parted appearance, of almost pectinate perfection, upon the upper often all these character- istics seem to have been relegated to the regions of a lost art. The leaves are apt to stand out all over the place and awry. They exhibit a crowded and comparatively shock-headed arrangement. Side by side they look like the foliage of two different trees, anyhow until more closely examined, and then—to those at least who know—they look, as they should, themselves. As it is quite an unusual occurrence for the majority of us to come into contact with the top boughs of trees that stand over a hundred feet high, this is a little attention to detail that we can only recommend . readers for their own edification to make the most of, when they happen across one of these giants pros- trated by storm, and levelled to the earth by the inevitable forces of the Fates and Furies. . Witnesses of their doom may, perchance, with luck light upon another curious sight (as did the. writer), of the leaves on the extremity branchlets lying upturned, after the fall to earth of the tree, and the new ones growing on the wrong side and the opposite one to that on which they did before, when their parent stem led a straight and upright life. The 86 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS whitened stomatiferous side, which was lying wrong side up after the fall, had, from all evidences, firmly refused to face exposure to the heavens. The sun had dominated the situation and made the leaves to grow according to his lights, and that was in upside- down arrangement. A weird picture of the rules and laws of topsy-turvydom. : GROUP III A. NORDMANNIANA, AMABILIS, RELIGIOSA, MARIESII, VEITCHII, SACHALINENSIS, SIBIRICA Oh! forest deep and gloomy, Oh! woodland, vale, and hill, From Mendelssohn's Open-Aty Muste, A. NoRDMANNIANIA.—Of all the trees in this group, first and foremost upon terms of more intimate familiarity, stands out this dark and grim Caucasian Silver Fir. Their leaves are generally written down as dark green and glossy. Glossy they are, as the best of polished patent leather, but when you come to compare at close quarters there are many Silver Firs whose leaves are as dark and darker than are they, and there is a good deal more of the green of grass hue in their composition than perhaps in any other of the nearer relations of the family. It is rather the density of their leaf system, and the opaque shadows they in consequence cast, that suggests ideas of black forests and sombre depths with which they have been associated, or those ‘forests deep and gloomy” with which we announced their introduction upon our scene. To sum up their merits, they bear a character all round for robust hardiness. They time their annual growth to such a season that they can afford to display a spontaneous dis- A. NORDMANNIANA 87 regard for any of those little thermometric irregulari- ties of the calendar, in the shape of late spring frosts or Etesian winds. Neither are they hypercritical sticklers, like so many of their kind, in a choice of soil or in aspect of position. In short they accept cheerfully, in happy-go-lucky frame of mind, what their tutelary gods send them, be it situation assigned or visitation of elements. They hold better timber testimonials than the generality of the Abies Family, and they—the Silver Firs—we are constrained to say, do not hold as high a character for popularity among timber buyers as many of their owners would wish. The complaints urged against them are that they are generally of too large a size to push, move, or compete with on the saw bench. Another drawback alleged against them is that their rather porous propensities make them adapted for indoor rather than outdoor use in their final careers. As, then, they have been acclaimed as growing trees (1) weatherproof, and (2) picturesque, (3) of accommodating disposition to soils and sites, (4) as of fairly useful timber properties, the wonder grows ; why is it that our horizons, our backgrounds, our middle distances, and our foregrounds are not more often streaked with their dark masses, looming out against skylines? The answer may be that about the times they should have been or might have been planted, say, in the seventies or eighties (they were introduced about 1850), to produce such effects, ornamental tree-planting was neither a favourite nor fashionable craze of the land-owning confraternity. Like Gallio, the lordly possessors of vast domains in that day were not caring very much just then about such things. In the forties of the last century it evidently was more a matter of concern with them, and in the last 88 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS decade or so revivalists have not spoken and written in vain. Books on the subject were published, Chinese explorers brought back arboricultural gifts rich and rare: a Royal Arboricultural Society was formed ; forestry exhibitions and plantation com- petitions were organized by the Royal Agricultural Society ; other agricultural societies followed suit. The very Board of Agriculture nodded approval and began to fumble for their purse ; in short, all was “going well and happy as marriage bells, till war sounded its alaruni-call,—War teterrimum, horridum, infandum, heap upon it all you can recall, from languages ancient and modern, in the superlative degree for choice, but not omitting Pliny’s dictum that it should be non provocandum, as a pronounce- ment of acquittal to those by whom it was un- sought—and brought about the suppression of many an aim and object, that was careering gaily on the high road to success and many-sided improvement. Perhaps a day may dawn, in years to come, when more dark masses of the Caucasian Silver Fir will greet the eye of travellers as they journey to and fro on the highways and byways of our island home. As experience with these relays of imported trees progresses, it gradually and slowly impresses ideas as to the chances or off-chances of success or failure that we are likely to encounter in our effort to cultivate them. If mathematically minded we might mentally review them as hardy, possible, or hopeless, or catalogue them as ‘‘ Well-to-does,” ‘“‘ Non-well-to- does,”” and ‘‘ Ne’er-do-weels.”” The A. Religiosa, Sachalinensis, and Sibirica are to be classed in the third of these departments, and without much hope of any remove or redemption. A. Re icrosa, although a tall tree in Mexico, and in spite of the fact that it had a good testimonial A. RELIGIOSA, SACHALINENSIS, SIBIRICA 89 from Loudon, has—ever “ looking to the south ’— ignominiously failed among us. It is possible that a few rather sketchy, dilapidated remnants may reward the curio-hunter if he makes diligent search in Corn- wall or South Ireland, or some such “‘ Ultima Thule,” —or call it, if you care, El Dorado,—and that seems to be all the guide-books of tree whereabouts have to offer the tree-hunters. It is of Mexican origin, and derives its religious name from the use it is put to in decorating churches on festal days. It is like the Abies Nordmanniana in leaf arrangement, but with fewer median leaves. The first year’s shoots are corrugated, the second year’s shoots less so, but the most telling evidence of its identity is that the tips of its leaves are not notched, as are all the others of this group. The A. SAcHALINENSIS comes from the Kurile Islands, Saghalien, and Hokkaido, the North Island of Japan, where it is the sole representative of its species, and known colloquially as Todo-matsu. We can say of it and of the A. Sibirica that their presences with us are few and far between sights, and are said to be likely to be fewer and farther between still. Its wood is very valuable. A. Siprrica.—In spite of well-founded discourage- ments on every side to make attempts to grow this tree on English soil, human perversity often prevails, and sets us at times pursuing with small chance of achieving success. What we ought not to do is just what every one desires to do, and often does. If you are the recipient of a gift of one, as was the writer, what course is open to you? Surely only one, and that is to commit it to the ground and piously “‘ wish it good luck in the name of the Lord.’’ The one given to me and so treated, after some seven or eight years of heroic effort, and under the two distressful 90 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS winters of 1915-16 and 1916-17, and after several quite brisk struggles for existence, has now achieved the not very giddy height of twelve inches, but other- wise the presentation of an appearance that you may describe as robust. Yet there is a memento mori atmosphere that clings to the story of the tree. Like shadows they come into the story of our trees here, and like shadows time after time have they dis- appeared. The likes and unlikes are called attention to in the Table, and the fact noted that the Sacha- linensis has some seven or eight stomatiferous bands, the A. Sibirica only four or five. A. Mariesi.—The Alpine Fir of Central Japan was discovered in 1878 by C. Maries, and is regarded as rare. It is accounted among the more hopeless of those plants upon which persuasion has been brought to bear to do their best under the circum- stances of a strange land, and possibly in some cases of a strange altitude. There are, we think, one or two more that have not met the eye of the authorities, and that have done better than they are generally given credit for. The dark-looking branchlets are covered over with the rustiest of dark-looking choco- late-coloured pubescence that ever covered twig of tree, matted and tangled, and with as tell-tale a surface as the goat-skin which deceived the patriarch Isaac. If more tokens were called for to complete its identity, we should compare its outward appear- ance to a short-leaved Nordmanniana, so short that it has the resembling look of a Hemlock Spruce. Yet a Nordmanniana, with its shiny, grey-brown, smooth- looking twigs and its only scattered pubescence, has little in real common with the dark, hirsute-twigged Mariesii. Nor, for the matter of that, has the Mariesii much in common with the smoother, less pubescent, twigged Veitchii, A. VEITCHII AND AMABILIS gi A. VeIrcui1.—A high-altitude variety, and the smallest of Japanese Silver Firs. Among Conifer collectors this tree seems to have attracted a good deal of attention of late. Its iridescent vivid white beneath the leaves, which at Kew seems to have been dulled by town atmosphere, makes it a general favourite. Unlike the A. Mariesii it has not escaped the attention of many patrons, and it takes its life among us with vitalised zest. Its characteristics are its smooth bark and twigs, with scattered pubescence. “On the branchlets, with the pubescence upon them, the colour of the shoots appears to be of perhaps a darker tint than they really are, and the little white dots on the twigs when the leaf is pulled off show out in great contrast to the dark-looking background, like ivory specks inset on ebony. Its soft leaves, pointing forward but more upright than those of the A. Nordmanniana, end in a square-shaped truncate apex. A. AMABILIS.—We have kept our reference to the Amabilis to the last mentioned of Group III, since, and quite wrongly, it always seems to have been sailing in company with, and under the same flag as, the two representatives of Group IV, A. Nobilis and A. Magnifica. Sometimes the Amabilis has been sent out under false names and the trees have turned out to be Nobilis or Magnifica, to which perhaps it may bear a superficial similitude. Any doubt can soon be put to rest by an examination of the position of the median leaves. In the Amabilis the leaves rise up direct from the stem. In the A. Nobilis and Magnifica they appear to lean along the stem for the first part of their length, or, to describe it more correctly, they are appressed 92 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS for a short distance and for a part of their length to the stem. \ From the A. Nordmanniana, which has a similar arrangement of leaves, the Amabilis is distinguished by its more blue colour, by its citron-like smell, and by its small and resinous winter buds. Then, again, it has no stomata on the upper side of its leaf, while the Nobilis and Magnifica have. The apex of leaf of Amabilis is notched, while of the others it is rounded and entire. GROUP IV A. Nositis (NOBLE Fir), anD A. Maenirica (SHASTA, oR RED Fir) Amidst these glorious works of Thine, The solemn minarets of the pine And awful Shasta’s icy shrine, WHITTIER, The little differences between these two ought to be adjusted without much difficulty. The leaf of the A. Nobilis has only two surfaces and the one on the top is grooved, while the A. Magnifica’s leaf is quadrangular or diamond-shaped in section and not grooved. If taken between the fingers it will roll round easily, while the Nobilis, which is flat or two-sided, will not respond to any such rotary treatment. GROUP V A. CILIcIA AND NuMIDICA Group V and the following Group VI seem especially to shine in irregularities, and to comprise a sort of menagerie omne-gatherum group of unorthodoxy that have been denied admittance elsewhere, often for the merest trifle, A. CILICIA AND NUMIDICA 93 Their leaf arrangement is sometimes with the V-shaped depression and sometimes with the topknot arrangement of median leaves, and it is this irregu- larity that has placed the A. Cilicia and the Algerian Silver Fir, A. Numidica, specifically together, in spite of their obvious dissimilarities. As neither of them so far have put in much of an appearance in Great Britain, their nonconformity to one of these two very distinguished sects, V-shaped or with median leaves, does not so much matter. As A, Crzicra is probably delicate, and A. Numipica for some reason best known to itself uncommon, they are neither of them likely to be a thorn in the path of the Pinetum haunter. It should not, however, be forgotten that between the verdicts of ‘‘ too delicate’? and “uncommon” a wide difference exists, and that though what is “ too delicate” is unlikely to make appearance, what is only uncommon may at any time be met with more frequently in the future than it has been in the past. As the A. Numipica has not only stomata on both sides of its short, thickset-looking leaves—which, as has been pointed out, is of rare occurrence in the Abies family—but displays also the unique peculiarity of median leaves pointing backwards instead of forwards, as do those of the rest of its tribe, a clear clue to identity is always at hand. A. Cilicia seems closely allied to A. Nordmanniana, though it has lighter-coloured leaves. GROUP VI A. Pinprow, ConcoLor, LASIOCARPA Group VI completes the last lot. They consist of three species, penned apart on account of their refusal to conform to any sufficiently established code of 94 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS customs that entitles them to enter the ranks of other groups. The Lasrocarpa was probably discovered during the north-west expedition by Lewis and Clark, 1805, but was first collected by Douglas in 1832. It has been variously called Balsam or Mountain Balsam, or Alpine Fir, and familiarly addressed by the less learned and Latinised of the gardener fraternity as ‘Lazy. Old Carp, and always seems to be more or less a perplexity even to those more than ordinarily acquainted with the rarities of Pinetums. That this uncertainty exists can only be due to the fact that many trees wrongly have left the nurseries under the name of Lasiocarpa or Subalpina. For the most part they have turned out to be Concolor or Lowiana. From a branch that I have before me, sent by the Forest Service of the United States, which has voyaged from Colorado to County Radnor, the very pallor of its grey-green leaves looks of a different hue from any other Conifer that I have seen. Possibly they may have faded from their pristine glory of blue- green with a silvery tinge, attributed to them by American dendrologists. The apices of the leaves of these are all rounded, sometimes we are told that on young shoots they are acute. Those on top side of branch point upward, and those below are disposed to curve insympathy to join them. The branches were corky, fissured, pubescent, and of a light straw colour. Where the leaf had left its appointed place, there remained an oval-shaped light-red scar. This in itself, if there were no other, is a guide to its identity safe and sure. The characteristic swelling of the nodes is very apparent. I write of it as it lies before me and as I have found it. The cones that accompanied the branches were of variable size. Some in clusters of three and A. LASIOCARPA, CONCOLOR, AND PINDROW 9§ practically sessile. They are—the cones—hard to get and bad travellers, and some—at least so I have found—of the hardest to obtain. The sharp-pointed head of the tree in its native land, which seems to run its course from Yukon to Colorado, makes it a conspicuous object for recognition to all residents versed, and travellers interested, in the ways and habits of the trees of the country. The moral of this description is that when you notice a tree labelled Lasiocarpa or Subalpina in a nurseryman’s garden, and it answers all these de- scriptions, and only when it does, get out your pen and write an order. A. ConcoLor has been dealt with in connection with the A. Lowiana, under the head Group II. It seems curious that two such closely related affinities of, moreover, a perplexing similarity of appearance, should be found herded in different pens. Some authorities even include both the Colorado (A., Concolor) and the Californian tree (A. Lowiana) in the same name Concolor, and the same authorities upon the question of relative hardness pronounce a judgment in favour of the Colorado Concolor. Concolor is a Latin word meaning “‘ of the same colour’; why it was so called by Engelmann, history does not appear to relate, or perhaps crassness of intelligence fails to enlighten. It was introduced in the early seventies, or some twenty years after the appearance of the A. Lowiana. A. PinpRow.—We have alluded to this tree in connection with its affinity, the A. Webbiana. Here again we might have expected the two to have been accommcedated in the same compartment under a group system. At the same time there are several very obvious differences that meet the eye of the identifier readily. 06 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS While the Webbiana has perhaps the most brilliant. silver-white colouring on the under-surface of its leaves of all Silver Firs, the A. Pindrow only shows. grey inconspicuous stomata bands. Again, while the shoots of the Webbiana have prominent Pulvini and deep grooves with reddish pubescence, those of the Pindrow are grey and glabrous in the first stage of their existence. KETELEERIA The KETELEERIA is so far no declared habitué of English soils. Experts do not deny it a future in such specially favoured climatic conditions as Cornwall or South Ireland afford. It hails from Central China and Formosa. The leaves bear a prima facie likeness to the Cephalotaxus, but whereas the latter is a member of the Taxacee family, and like them has its foliage mounted on little projections, the Keteleeria takes after the Abies tribe, and displays the circular dist when the leaf is pulled away from its smooth stem. It has a prominent midrib on both surfaces and is accredited with two stomatic bands on lower surface which are very faint and inconspicuous, to judge by some leaves sent from the Temperate House at Kew. » In cone character they break away from Abies dehiscent tradition and show persistent characteris- tics. The difference of the male flowers is alluded to in the table. The resin canals are as in Abies Pectinata, marginal and two in number. With the Keteleeria we should, we feel, like to become better acquainted, but its life-history reads as if there is but. a faint likelihood of any fulfilment of the wish. THE DOUGLAS FIR 97 PsEupo-Tsuca Douciasit (DouGLas Fir) ‘Tis said he had a tuneful tongue, Such happy intonation, Wherever he sat down and sung He left a small plantation, Tennyson, Old Amphion, The Douc tas Fir.—History of its introduction: Discovered by Menzies in 1792, during Vancouver’s voyage round the world. Rediscovered by Douglas, 1827. Introduced 1828. Firmly established and plentifully planted since 1862 up to the present time. What accelerating influence towards the growth of trees old Amphion possessed in the strains of music he poured forth from his melodious pipe, many of us doubtless would like to learn the secret of. We know, and that is all, that some occult influence impels the Douglas to grow with more celerity than any other forest tree we plant in masses. No trees, unless it be the European Larch, have been more widely planted of late years than the now well-known Douglas Fir. When asked, “ Why is this so ? ” we might make reply as the Scotsman, and answer ‘‘ For every why.” Its timber results are more than promising, they are an accomplished fact. Its rapidity of growth is phenomenal. The Royal Agricultural S.E. judges of the plantation competition in 1915 computed, if I remember aright, by measurement, that some of the Shropshire-grown Douglas (at Leaton Knolls, the seat of Colonel Lloyd, M.V.O.) had made several annual consecutive growths of no less than four feet. Again, it is without doubt ornamental, and though | not immune from the ravages of rabbits altogether, is certainly more distasteful, with the exception of the Corsican Pine, to them than other Conifers. The Oregon variety is the one we are advised to plant, the Colorado the variety to avoid. A good 98 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS object-lesson in their difference of growth was seen and commented upon by the judges of plantations referred to above, in a large wood of about sixteen acres (Plassey Plantation), planted out with pure Douglas by Lord Powis in 1906-7, at his Shropshire home at Walcot. They had been planted simul- taneously but in distinct groups. The Oregon had grown to be half as high again as their Colorado confréres, which occupied about a third of the space of the ground. The tree has been so universally planted that it has become a familiar sight of everyday walks. At the same time it reads about as complicated a question in the way of a botanical puzzle as any. In some respects it takes after the Spruces (Piceas), in other respects after the Silver Firs (Abies). On points added the Silver Firs get most marks, but insufficient to admit it unreservedly to theirranks. Veitch called it Abietia ; Elwes and Henry, and also Bean, cling to Pseudo-Tsuga nomenclature. . The cones plentifully strewn around its trunk are pendulous, as are the cones of the Piceas, but the exserted bracts are more after the manner of some of the Abies. The bright-red flowers (male) about # inch long, surrounded by involucral bracts and growing on the under-side of the branchlet of the preceding year, present a very pretty spring picture. The pistillate or female flowers, mostly terminal, are composed of imbricated scales, with the three-lobed bracts, shaped like a Neptune’s trident, longer than their scales, and which appear afterwards on the full-grown cone, give it an unmistakable appearance. The leaves, it will be seen, on looking at them closer, are placed on rather obscure and very slightly raised pulvini. When pulled off they make no such per- ceptible tear as the more prominently raised Common Spruce, neither do they leave the clean-cut circular THE DOUGLAS FIR 99 disc the Abies leaves behind, but instead an oval scar on the top of a little projection. The resin canals are as the Abies, two in number and marginally placed. The fibro-vascular bundle, too, is single. Other points of comparison and characteristics are given upon the opposite page, but we might further mention that the Colorado variety is generally known to foresters by its shape, more trustworthy evidence than judgment by colour, which is formed by ascending branches into a more bushlike plant. One crux, it may be pointed out here, that planters have to contend with in laying out woods of Douglas Firs, and it is this: the lower branches of these trees are so obstinately robust that they refuse to subject themselves to any of those self- sacrificing ordinances of self-pruning that are so essential to the well-being of their trunk system in after days. The question then arises, in face of this rather disheartening characteristic, What is the best distance apart to plant? If called in to prescribe we should suggest a distance of five feet. The Oregon variety was first discovered, so history reads, by Dr. Archibald Menzies in 1791. He first found it in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Van- couver Island. It was introduced in 1827 by the ill-fated traveller David Douglas, and the tree having been tossed about by the call of men from name to name—to wit, Red Spruce, Yellow Fir, Paget Sound Pine--finally settled down and took unto itself the enduring title of Douglas. David Douglas, the nominator, met a tragic end in the Sandwich Islands in 1833. His mutilated body was found in a trap-pit contrived to catch wild cattle. He was precipitated into a pit occupied by a still alive horned inmate. The rest of the story shall be silence. The other variety generally alluded to as the Colorado Douglas was first found by Dr. C. C, Parry 8 100 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS in 1862. The differences between the two, and the verification of their differences, has been the text of many a debate in the fraternity of tree lovers. ‘Professor Augustine Henry bids us take note of these, their differences. The young twigs of the Oregon are ‘‘ usually’ downy, while those of the Colorado are smooth. The foliage of the Oregon is pale green, in that of the Colorado the upper surface of the needles is bluish. The U.S.A, Department of Agriculture, in its Forest Service Contribution, goes one better. It bids us take note that while the Neptune’s trident-shaped bracts on the cones of the Oregon more or less point straight up the length of the cone, those upon the Colorado variety are reflexed. If this is proved to be a universal practice on behalf of the two varieties, it is an ‘‘ open sesame ” to the mysteries of their botanical disassociation. With the exception of this last remark, we have been only trying to review some English expressed views upon the subject of the two brother Douglases. We will now try to express a few American ideas on the subject of a tree that maybe is destined to play a great part in the history of the British timber industry.’ The first discovered of the two is generally known as the Oregon Douglas, though its domain ranges upon long Pacific slopes, from Vancouver Island to San Francisco, while the later-discovered one hails from farther east, among the ranges of the Rockies, and is generally referred to as the Colorado species. What America has to say upon the question of the wood value should be of interest to us. The Oregon Douglas represents the yellow narrow- ringed, and the Colorado the red and wide-ringed— although the slower grower of the two—wood of the lumberman ; and it is the yellow, narrow-ringed timber THE DOUGLAS FIR Tor of the Oregon, that exceeds in value, because of its greater durability than that of the red wider-ringed wood of the Colorado variety. In the contest for hardihood, the decision in favour goes to the more slow-growing later immigrant to Colorado. A want of robustness, however, can hardly be urged against either, though it is true that the quicker-growing Oregon, as he thrusts his head above his lag-behind contemporaries, is oft in need of shelter to ensure the safety of his topmost branches. It is well, then, in prospecting for them their position in a plantation, to look out for declivities sheltered from prevailing winds. They both seem to show preference for a northern and perhaps a western aspect, and bear the reputation, in their younger stages of existence, of being moderately tolerant of shade. It is estimated that they may be expected to attain a goodly old age, computed in America at from 400 to 500 years, but reckoned, according to Veitch in his Manual of Conifers, as from 450 to 750. III PICEH, OR SPRUCE TREES (OF THE NATURAL ORDER OF CONIFERA:, oF THE GENUS PINACE#, oF THE TRIBE ABIETINE, OF THE GENUS PICEA) INTRODUCTORY Yet green are Saco’s banks below, And belts of spruce and cedar show Dark fringing round these cones of snow. WHITTIER, Funeral of the Sokokis. Picea is the Latin name given to the family of trees more familiarly spoken of as Spruce Firs, and the English name accorded can be traced by usually employed processes—namely, the searching of dic- tionaries and the excavating of derivations—to an adjective that implies something natty, smart and dandified. While in many instances the various species of these Spruce trees, like the Socialists of old and to-day, hold ideas as to the possession of certain properties in common, they, notwithstanding, contrive to draw the line at the participation of other points at issue when it happens to suit their particular fancy or convenience, or, more correctly speaking in an application to trees, the exigencies of their geo- graphical situations. We will instance some of their features in common. Their trunks taper, their crowns are pyramid-shaped, and their branches grow in regularly distanced circles 102 CHARACTERISTICS OF SPRUCE TREES 103 or whorls. Their leaves are spirally or radially arranged—that is to say, they cover the stem and lateral branchlets on all sides, and do not leave bare spaces upon the latter in lines like the V-shaped, or pectinate arrangement, of the Silver Fir. -Needle-like in shape their leaves arise singly from the stems and branchlets. On examination it will be found that they are placed upon little raised woody excrescences of the stem. These are variously called pulvini, or cushions, peg-like projections, or stumps. In golf phraseology they would be called “‘ tees,”’ and not inaptly, since a tee is a base which intervenes between the ground and the ball placed upon it, and so in like manner is this projection, nothing more or less than a base that intervenes between the leaf and the stem. Pulvinus is the Latin for a cushion, and a cushion is a commodity commonly considered in the Western grades of refined civilization to imply something that is soft and yielding, and this impression it conveys to nearly all except perhaps to a Japanese, who, in spite of all these opportunities of mollifying influences that civilization has flung in his face, still prefers to lay his Spartan head on a wooden rest. The object of our description is, however, anything but soft and yielding; on the contrary, it is hard and wooden as the Japanese head-rest. The simile does not seem a very happy effort upon the part of the author of it. Anything more anti-pulvinate, in the European acceptance of the term, could not be conceived by any one who seeks enlightenment from the meaning of language. However you like to think of it, whatever you care to call it, this fact is assured, that leaf and pulvinus are in relation of clinging affinity, and you cannot pull the one off without tearing away the other. Prince Houssain, of Arabian Nights fame, stuck no 104 PICE#, OR SPRUCE TREES more firmly to his magic carpet than do these young leaves to their so-called cushions. The two great divisions of the Picez are differen- tiated by the shape of their leaves. While the true Spruce Firs have four-angled, four-sided (tetragonal) leaves, the Omoricas have only two-sided leaves,, and are flat-leaved like the Abies. As has been pointed, out before, this difference is easily ascertained by rolling them between thumb and finger. We give illustrations, two of each, of how a flat-leaved specimen looks when cut transversely and enlarged by magnify- ing process, and how a four-sided or tetragonal leaf appears treated similarly. Tetragonal, or fours sidedmee. Magnifica, ~ Fiat-leaved, or two- -sided—e.z. Webbiana, TRANSVERSE SECTION OF LEAVES (MAGNIFIED). It will be seen by this that the difference that exists between a paper-knife and kitchen roller, or, to pursue our metaphor on more strictly analogous lines, between a sawn two-inch plank and a naturally grown rounded tree-stem, if subjected to the same process, is hardly more pronounced. Most of these generic character- istics appear in the table, pp. 280-282. We have only to supplement them with the fact that on both the male flowers are solitary and situated in the axils of the top leaves, while the female flowers are solitary and terminal—that is to say, growing at the end of the branches. And of the cones we would add, in the case of the Omorica group, at times, when for instance they grow in. clusters (as on the Omorica species CHARACTERISTICS OF SPRUCE TREES 105 itself), or terminally as on the Hondoensis, it may be said with accuracy that they do not quite assume a strict pendulous habit, though they make a good try for it: These are some of the generic characteristics of the Spruces, and now we approach the question of the best method of reducing identification difficulties. There are fifteen of the true Spruces (Eupicea) enumerated by Elwes and Henry, for the most part recognized and naturalized habitués of Great Britain. These fifteen are divided into three groups, consisting one of séven, another of two, the third of six. It seems as if the determining factor of their arrangement was based upon the pubescent condition of their branches and branchlets. Thus, the members of Group I are returned as glabrous, or non-pubescent. One only, the P. Bicolor—we cannot explain his presence, we can only apologize for it as a little rift within our lute—has slipped into this group without, complying with the condition. Group III is composed of Spruces whose branchlets are all pubescent ; and as between the sheep and the goats an intermediate stage of animal life exists, known as the alpaca, so also there is between the pubescent and non-pubescent Spruces a betwixt-and- between couplet, labelled as Group II, and adver- tised as equipped only with minute and scattered pubescence. Pubescence and non-pubescence certainly play the most prominent part in the identification process in a genus where (unlike the Abies) the roughness or smoothness of branchlet, or apex of leaf, of a Spruce counts for so little. Colour of leaf may help and does help in some cases, since some of the Spruces are glaucous green, or even bluish-white, others are of a brighter and more yellow hue. The length of, leaf 106 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES question dissociates some of them. Of the longer- leaved lot we should include— In Group I In Group II Smithiana. Excelsa, Shrenkiana. Albertiana. Pungens, ; Polita. In Grovp III Bicolor. Engelmannii, Of the shorter-leaved lot we should count— In Group I { In Group III Alba, Nigra. Maximowiczii. Rubra, Glehnii, Orientalis and Obovata, In the Omoricas the margins of the plentifully found cones, whether they are entire, frayed or jagged, and of whatever shape at the apex, tells a talé, but rather an obscure one, we own, of their identity. This applies also to the Engelmannii, Bicolor, and Pungens in the Spruce Group. ‘These cones and those of the Sitka; Ajanensis, and Hondoensis, bear a certain similitude in appearance, and their scales: seem all composed of the same soft, spongy, squeezable, light-brown material. Most of the others, like the Eupicez (the Common Spruce, Morinda, etc.), seem to be made of a much more leathery and tougher dark-brown substance. The application of the name Abies to Silver Firs, and Picea to Spruces, has ben a dispute of many years’ standing. Whether the one word was—as some authorities ‘have’ suggested—derived from the Latin word abeo; and used in an ascendant sense, “ abeunt in nubila montes” (as the mountains rise to the skies), may or may not be, but if it is so, it is and was the Silver Fir that indisputably represented ORIGIN OF NAMES ABIES AND PICEA 1047 height, and the Spruce that provided the pix liquida, the boiling liquid pitch, that was—but is not now—-employed for purposes of torture in the days of the early Roman Empire. | In the long-ago past of pre-Virgilian days maybe there was some cause for confusion as to whether the word Abies referred to Silver Fir, or whether Picea stood for a Spruce, or whether, vice versa, a Spruce was an Abies and a Silver Fir a Picea. This difference seems to have developed into quite a long-standing cause célébre in the courts of botanical jurisprudence. As a contest of wits it was a case of a lead-off between two no less renowned Romans than Pliny called the Elder on the one side, and Virgilius Maro of Georgic fame on the other. In the courts of appeal the verdict has gone in favour of Virgil, and from our point of view rightly. Virgil was born and lived on his parental farm, while Pliny led the life of a soldier and barrister-at-law in turn. Virgil lived a generation before Pliny and so was first in the field, not only agriculturally speaking, but from a previous generation point of view, if that goes for anything, at a date when the /audator temporis acti is apt to be quoted at a discount. One more word in favour of this judgment: either the author of the Georgics was an authority on country life, or vast sums of parental money have been from time immemorial thrown away on the public schools’ curriculum in England. From an extract in his oft- construed epic poem, the A‘neid, it has been shown (v. Veitch’s Book of Conifers) that he referred to the existence of Abies growing in a locality in which Silver Firs have always been knowni-to flourish,and where Spruces—it is equally well known—have never seen the light of day, or still less those heights in the heavens that so many of the Abies reach. Jf this is not conclusive reasoning that the Silver 108 PICEH#, OR SPRUCE TREES Fir should appropriate the name of Abies, and that the Spruces, as residuary legatees of the only other left in the market, should assume the name of Picea, nothing, we contend, can ever be in a con- tentious world written down as final, or even of passing worth. GROUP I P. SmirHIANA, MAXIMOWICzII, SHRENKIANA, PuN- GENS, PoxiTa, ALBA, BICOLOR (OR ALCOCKIANA) P. SmirH1ana.—As far as the names go the ver- nacular aliases (e.g. Morinda) of this tree have—with all apologies to Sir E. Smith, first President of the Linnean Society, and after whom it was named—a far more pleasing ring than the name finally bestowed on it by priority of publication, but not given,, we mark, by priority of name as bestowed upon it by the natives and European dwellers before the date 1812, when it was described and figured by Dr. Wallich. It is certainly a tree that impresses the memory of the most casual of observers. Its long pendulous leaves, hanging like dangling tassels.on its long pendulous branches, are accountable for its home circle and Anglo-Indian name of the Weeping Spruce of the Himalayas. They are as unlike as can be, in outward appearance, to the more ordinary- looking Spruces. Yet if examined closely, they comply with all the requirements of the class in such essentials as pulvini, acicular leaves, etc. P. SHRENKIANA.—Perhaps the nearest to the above-mentioned in appearance, only with leaves. much shorter, pointing forwards, and lying even nearer along the branches than an American jockey ever lay along his horse’s neck,-is the Siberian P. P. SHRENKIANA AND PUNGENS 10g Shrenkiana, which so far with us ranks among the rarities. As far as a limited and local experience goes, this tree seems to thrive in some of the highly situated positions of this neighbourhood (the borders of Herefordshire and Radnorshire), localities which are counted by unkind critics from more balmy regions as examples of climatic severity. Two or three young specimens have weathered the conditions of 1915 and 1916, which included fourteen degrees of frost on May 2oth in one year, and the coldest succession of continual north wind blasts we, or any one living, can ever remember, and which for the first time in the memory of man “‘ browned ” the exposed side of many of our inland-growing Conifers. Its appearance rather suggests a pocket edition of the Smithiana. The leaves are shorter, and those on a bough before me are from # to 1 in. long, and mounted on unusually high pegs or pulvini. They not only point forward, but point forward so pointedly that their tips almost touch the branch. Another peculiarity of its appearance as a tree is the long terminal shoot, which is twice the length of the longest branchlet in the whorl and more than twice as thick. The terminal shoot before me measures nearly two inches round its base. The cones on a local tree are 2} in. long (W. Banks, Esq., Hergest Croft, Kington), while of those I have ob- tained from the Royal Botanical Gardens, Petrograd, the longest measures 4 in. P. PunceEns, especially in the blue form (var. Glauca) is seen everywhere, and often called Parryana, after its discoverer, Dr. C. C. Parry, who found it in 1862. A form called Kosteri Pendula claims to be, and is, more brilliantly blue still. Many trees that are written down Engelmannii turn out to be P. Pungens. IIo PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES P. ENnGELMANNI.—To identify the true Engel- mannii you must invoke two of the five senses, the sense of sight and smell—the sense of sight to per- ceive the pubescence, the sense of smell to detect its rank odour; and these two accomplishments brought to bear will enable you to pronounce opinion upon.which is which of the P. Pungens and P. Engel- mannii; P. Engelmannii, we reiterate, is pubescent and P. Pungens non-pubescent. P. Portta.—To identify the Polita you must invoke the last of the five senses—the sense of touch; and anyone who can recall the acute experience of the point of a perch’s fin ought to have no diffi- culty in making out and remembering the strong spiny-tipped leaves of the Polita. Nursery maids, instructresses and caretakers of our well-being in infantile days, were wont to exhort us always to grasp the nettle, a process, if I remember right, they were always more prone to preach than to practise. Had they urged us to grasp the Polita leaves, and had we done so, I feel sure its identity would have lingered in our memories for many a long day after the pain in our hands had subsided. E. H. Wilson describes a forest of pure Polita he met with on Lake Yamanaka, in his 1916 visit to Japan, as one of the finest and most unique sylvicultural sights he ever contemplated.. The orange-red branchlets of the tree, with its very pronounced markings and grooves, not to mention the spear-point, perch-fin prickle armament of the leaf apex, ought also to aid anyone in grappling with its identity. . P, Brcotor, or ALcock1ana.—The christening of this tree seems rather after the manner of the naming of the Smithiana or Morinda, a close race for prece- P. BICOLOR AND ALCOCKIANA III dence between a human celebrity and a vernacular or a descriptive rendering of title. In both cases, some even modern authorities call it the one, others the other, a state of affairs which offers to all a happy and unconcerned freedom of tongue in any discussion that may arise upon it. . The name Bicolor was bestowed upon it because it broke away from the traditions of the true Spruces, and exhibited conspicuous white bands of stomata upon only half of its surfaces (for it is a four- angled-leaf tree) ; on the other halves the stomata, though they are there, are sufficiently invisible to render a green effect. These white and green effects are—it must be presumed—tresponsible for the Bi- color name. If this were not sufficient, the marked contrast of colour, as between the creamy or pale primrose-white shoots of the year, and the dark-red, cherry-coloured shoots of that preceding, carries on the ‘‘ of two colours ” name and tradition with great - emphasis, and suggests a colour scheme of as marked a contrast as that between the red flank and white face of a prize Hereford cow. Upon many descriptive points in writing the P. Bicolor and our Common Spruce read much alike. The stomata differences do not convey any very illuminating clue to the ordinary observer, even under the microscope. It is this dense, close-crowded foxtail growth of the leaves that makes you aware you are looking at something out of the common in the Spruce line. Possibly it may look like our old friend, the P. Excelsa, at the first glance, but a second look shows you a new face of foreign features. Most of the trees that lay a claim to the name Bicolor, or Alcockiana, are in reality Hondoensis, and this is due to some such dull and sublunary prosaic mistake as a luggage label going wrong in a Ti2 PICEH, OR SPRUCE TREES past day, when they were first sent over to England. There is this wide difference between them, that the Alcockiana is a four-sided leaf with stomata more or less on all surfaces. The Hondoensis and Ajanensis (its near affinity) are flat-leaved trees, with stomata only on one side. The leaves of Alcockiana are stiff-curved with a cartilaginous point, the leaves of the others are blunter. The branchlets of the Alcockiana show pubescence in the grooves of the branchlets. The Hondoensis and Ajanensis do not. The resemblance between them and the Hon- doensis, then, is reduced to a mere nominal confusion, due to no similarities of any natural construction. The Alcockiana is not recommended by the faculty as a ‘‘ thing of beauty or a joy for ever,” to anyone who wishes to plant with these desirable objects in view. Note 1.—The latest ‘description of this tree comes from E. H. Wilson, in an account of it published in the Arnold Arboretum publication, 1916, and entitled Conifers and Taxads in Japan. The shoots he describes as at times quite glabrous, but on adult trees and their principal shoots pubes- cent. The leaves he describes as rhombic (quadrilateral) in section, of a bluish-green colour, oblique at apex, with small cartilaginous points. They and the cones are much the same as described by other authorities, from whom the details, as they appear in table, p. 280, are collected. Note 2.—There are two varieties of the P. Bicolor— Acicularis and Reflexa—called attention to in The Gardener’s Chronicle, August 14th, 1915, by the great Japanese authorities, Shirasawa and Royama. Both have slightly different cone scale features, but are P. MAXIMOWICZII AND GLEHNII 113 not of sufficiently pronounced difference to call further attention to here. Note 3.—We are told now that two forms of Bicolor exist, or have been tried, in England; one has main twig pubescent and lateral leaves smooth, the other is glabrous in both. P. Maximowi!cz11, GLEHNI, ORIENTALIS, OBOVATA, are all of them short-leaved Spruces bearing some resemblances. It will be seen that we are discussing them more from the point of view of certain outward observances than in strict accordance with their group systems. There is little call to prate on trees of which so little is to be seen as the P. Maximowiczii and Glehnii. The former belongs to the glabrous, the latter to the pubescent in the furrow division. Both hail from Japan, and the Maximowiczii seems even to be a rara avis in the path of the Japanese botanists in search after it on its native soil. It has short leaves, resinous buds, reddish glabrous branchlets. These are some of the descriptions it will be called to make good to the identifying investigators. It seems to have claimed for it various relationships to various Spruces—Obovata, Bicolor, Polita—by various authorities in various countries and localities. The Japanese regard it as a diminutive edition, or a strong-family-likenessed little daughter of the Polita. They call it Hime-Bara-Momi, the daughter of the Bara-Momi, the vernacular name for Polita, signifying a sharp-leaved tree. P. GieHni1.—Should anyone come across some of the very few young specimens that are being tried with us, we would emphasize a few points for his particular attention. The branchlets are reddish and pubescent in furrow as stated. Its buds are like the TX4 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES Nigra and Rubra, which are explained in our de scriptions. Its leaves are like the P. Orientalis. P, ORIENTALIS.—This tree is.common. enough with us, and planters of Conifers are beginning to réawaken to its ornamental merits. With its brilliant crimson staminate flowers and short leaves it is quite unique among the more elderly specimens of the Spruces seen with us. A tree planted here in 1845 measures close upon 90 ft. in height and 7 ft. 7 in. in girth, and this is 21 ft. higher, and 1 in. less in circumference, than the champion specimen (Dognersfield, Hants, Sir H. Mildmay) mentioned in Trees of Great Britain. P. Opovata is still more or less a stranger in our land. It is accredited with a propensity to quarrel with our climate on account of its too genial warmth. If so we can only say that it is a curious taste on its part, and an unusual complaint to hear charged against our country. Its leaves are shorter and more pointed than those of our Common Spruce. They appear to spread out more from the stem, or, to use a Cypress phrase, look “freer at the apex” than the generality of Spruces. Their brarichlets are of a greyer colour, and by way of being more pubescent than those of our Spruces, which when in good health are of a redder hue. Their cones are very different. Whereas the usual length of a P. Excelsa cone is somewhere about 6 in., the cones of the Obovata sent me from Russia measure at most but 24 in. The difference in the margin of their scales gives a valuable clue to their identity. The margins of the cone scales of the P. Obovata are round and entire, while those of the P. Excelsa are in most cases either one or two pointed. The small tree growing here so far promises well, and looks particularly happy in its surroundings, PICEA EXCELSA AND RUBRA 115 even after an endurance of the late severe May frost of 1915, and the unusually long visitation of cold late winter winds of 1916 and 1917. GROUP II P. Excersa, Rupra, Nicra, ALBA, ALBERTIANA Whilst towering firs in conic forms arise, And with a pointed spear divide the skies, M. Prior, The primary instinct of an uninstructed mind would in all probability regard the Common Spruce (P. Excelsa) as the representative type of what all properly conducted Spruces should ‘and ought to be. Possibly, if his inclinations carried him a little farther on the paths of investigation, he would notice that the leaves of some of these similarities were a little longer than others, and also that perhaps a different hue of colour here and there was apparent, and one or two little minor differences of this sort. But, on the whole, he would concur that the majority of Spruces, although labelled by the doctrinaires with different names, partook of a sufficient resemblance to the Common Spruce to justify him in including them mentally in one self-same category. If he went a little farther still upon his journey of investigations, the chances are he would soon be induced to modify his opinions. Let us suppose that he came across a Picea Rubra, he would at once notice a certain resemblance that ‘it bore to the Common Spruce. He would perceive that the leaves of the P. Rubra were, on the whole, shorter than those of the P. Excelsa. While the Picea Rubra’s leaves reach about half an inch in length, those of the Excelsa average about twice the length. Yet a young and weakly Common Spruce can often be found with leaves as short. The colour, too, is the same, we might almost say precisely the same. So far we have not got much forwarder, 9 r16 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES The Picea Rubra’s leaves on closer investigation are more densely crowded ; they are also very remarkably incurved, while those of the Common Spruce point in a very distinctly upward attitude. Here is a very telling difference, but a still more telling one is the dense pubescence on the P. Rubra branches, white on the young shoots and brown on the older branch- lets. The P. Excelsa here and there shows evidence of a few scattered downy tufts on the young stems, and this wears off considerably on older branchlets. But these scattered tufts of minute pubescence present a very marked difference of appearance from the dense down of thorough-going pubescent speci- mens. Here is an unmistakable difference and a lesson easily learnt. The cones differ entirely, as the table, p. 281, shows, but cones are not very forth- coming; if they were, many identifying difficulties would vanish. As the P. Rubra is a very rare tree, and only a few can have seen its cones growing, I make no apology for volunteering this home experience of them. I have before me a branch taken from the top of a specimen grown here, and planted about: 1845 (vide Elwes and Henry, vol. vi. p. 1379), and which is now nearly 80 ft. high. It tapers to a point and is about a foot broad in its widest part. In some 18 inches length of this little arrangement of branch and branchlets there are collected together some eighty cones, sessile in character, and as pendulous in position as they can contrive to be in their over- crowded dwelling sphere. If you wish further to dissociate these two trees Rubra and Excelsa, the buds will help you. If you look at the buds of the Rubra, and also of the P. Nigra, which in common shares this peculiar characteristic, it will be seen that their terminal buds are enveloped, for more than from head to foot, with long, narrow-pointed, -hairy VIOLINS AND SPRUCE TREES ry leaf-scale coverings, while the P. Excelsa has, com- ‘paratively speaking, only a commonplace-looking hard dry bud, destitute of any such singular trappings. To take two more nearly allied instances and dissociate them, the P. Nigra and the P. Alba have bluish glaucous-coloured leaves, quite unlike the more grass-green colour of the P. Rubra, or for the matter of that the P. Excelsa. But the P.. Alba is quite ‘devoid of any pubescence, and that is where it shows its marked independence of character in this rather perplexing trio of the Spruces—Red, Black, and White. ‘Finally, if you aspire to add to the sum of your accomplishments an intimacy with the different Piceas, we would strongly recommend a close ob- servance of the presence or absence of pubescence on their branches, as well also the colour shape and direction of their leaves, the margins of their scales of their cones, whether entire, delicately frayed on the fringe, or ruthlessly jagged in appearance. All these points become convincing evidences of the individuality of the tree in question. VIOLINS AND SPRUCE TREES That small, sweet thing, Devised in love and fashioned cunningly Of wood and strings. Before quitting the subject of the Common Spruce we should like to converse on one little sidelight of its wood value. In face of the fact that it has been so disregarded by. writers on trees, we feel no occasion to offer apology for a brief reference thereto. You do not often hap upon a student of wood values and a‘devotional lover of viols combined in one and the same personality. And so it is that one little episode in the life-history of the Spruce tree has gone by, for the most part, unheeded by tree historians, and in undeserved escape of notice from the musical 118 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES fraternity. By the former it is described as White Deal, by the latter defined as Swiss Pine. Yet it was from these trees, rated at lewliest of value in the timber marts of the world, holding even the worst fame of creosoted esthte experiment, that a few square inches of surface measure, with a depth little more than that required for a thin plating of veneer, of a price value an unappreciable fraction of the lowest current coin of the realm, were. appointed to make history. It was from these trees, and in pre- ference to all other trees that grow, that were requisi- tioned nearly half the component parts of certain little musical instruments, made up from ‘‘ wood and string,’ and destined often to draw four golden-figured prices from eager buyers. From these lightly re- garded Mountain Spruces, growing in their grandeur of loneliness, sometimes moved and stirred but never affrighted, as were the unrighteous people, told of by Solomon in his Book of Wisdom, by the portents that surrounded them, “ The whistling of the wind, the melodious noise of birds among branches, and the pleasing fall of waters running violently”; from each as they were formed and created, these instru- ments of subtle shape and make, ordained at some long-distant day to enrich our galleries of Art, and make addition to delights of sound. From them the frontal part of the great violins, violas, and ‘cellos, of Brescian and Cremonese fame, and of all other earlier and later viols, viols diskant and tenor, viols bass and double bass, were nearly half constructed, and these were those articles of vertu that were ultimately fated to fetch fabulous prices from succeeding generations of collectors and players. When we think of the part played by the high- altitude-growing specimens of this tree, it conjures up many a picture to the fiddle lover. Of Antonius Stradivarius and Joseph Guarnarius Del Jesu—in OMORICA, OR FLAT-LEAVED SPRUCES 119 reference presumably of his connection with the Society of the Jesuits, and as he signed himself— and the lesser but still renowned members of their family, selecting with crafty care choice specimens of wood from the best of their growths ; of another, old Jacob Steiner of Salzburg, the German fiddle designer, exploring the woodlands and mountain- sides in quest of them, and tapping their trunks, like a hungry woodpecker, in zealous endeavour to discover which responded most musically to the vibrations of desired sound, or on other occasions standing on the precipitous edge of some gorge or ravine, and hearkening eagerly for a stray sound of some tone or overtone as they toppled over, and crashed down crag and rock, felled by the hand of skilled fellers. It seems then, even from these few particulars of its back history, that the Spruce of the higher alti- tudes, in those latitudes and the outlying mountain lands of Lombardy, has yet much of its history to be written of, and more than that, many of its ancient secrets to be rediscovered, and perhaps some of those lost chords of its musical mysteries to be reawakened, if it is ever to attain a well-deserved apotheosis. OMORICA, OR FLAT-LEAVED SPRUCES Group I.—Honpoensis, AJANENSIS, SITKENSIS, MORINDOIDES (SHOOTS GLABROUS) Yet through the gray and sombre wood Against the dusk of fir and pine. es WHITTIER. The flat-leaved Spruces are so called for the all- sufficient reason that their leaves are flat, like the Abies, and not four-sided as the afore-discussed Eupicez ; on this point they have strayed from the fold of the true Picee. That they are not ranged with the Abies is due to the fact that their leaves 120 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES are mounted on those little woody excrescences which professors call pulvini (or projections). Then, again, their leaves are spiny and pointed. This is all in accordance with the habits of Picee and not in accordance with the practice of the leaves of the Abies, which are dented at the apex.as a rule. They are also credited with only showing white stomata bands on the under-surface of the leaf.. To this statement, which most authorities have endorsed, we make differential and deferential demur, since on the higher branches of a Sitka Spruce here, over 126 ft. high, we have found leaves with visible in- dications of stomata also on the upper-side. Indeed, the very leaves from the upper regions of. this: tree seem almost to belong to another specimen of the arboricultural race altogether. Although they have the same botanical characteristics, with: this ex- ception of stomata, an exception that does not descend to the leaves on the lower part of the same tree, they: are thicker in shape, and more densely crowded in habit. The leaves in question. were sent to the authorities at Kew, and opinion arrived at endorsed. They were commented upon in the Ar- boricultural Journal, 1915-16 vols., by Bean and others. This little disturbance of the accepted theory that no flat-leaved Spruces exhibited stomata on both sides of the leaf, we should like to add, ought in more justice to be attributed to the officious action of a tree squirrel who had bitten off some top twigs of a high tree, rather than to any commonplace ob- servational tendencies on the part of the owner and writer. Palmam qui meruit ferat — him who. has: deserved the palm, bear it). To differentiate at sight helwean the Sitka andthe Qmorica would be no easy task for the amateur, had it not been for the fact that the Omorica is obligingly SITKA SPRUCE Iai accommodated with pubescent evidences, while the Sitka remains equipped with smooth and glabrous stems. The cones of these two are obviously unalike. Around the Sitka the ground is plentifully strewn with soft, featherbed-feeling, light-brown specimens, while the cones of the Omorica are only half the size, hard and dark-coloured. We must not leave the subject of the Sitka without referring to the fact that it is reputed to flourish as the Willows by the water-courses. The faculty are strongly recommending the planting of it in all available wet places, and this advice has been carried out largely in Ireland by the Government. This partiality to damp places, however, cannot be taken to prove that as a tree it is incapable of growing on drier ground. The big Sitka here (Stanage Park, Radnorshire), which measured in 1916. 126 ft. high and 12 ft. girth five feet from ground, grows upon a Ludlow rock geological formation some 800 ft. above sea-level. Possibly, if its underground secrets were unearthed, it would be found that a percolating water-spring beneath ministered to its presumed aquatic wants. Its large and buttressed base, - its protruding-out-of-the-ground roots, are very charac teristic of its kind, and its natural inclination to a watery base. P. HonpoEnsis AND P, AJANENSIS.—As between the Hondo and Ajan Spruce there exists mystification, and consequently a good deal of botanical argument as to “ what’s what ” and “ which is which ’’ has been waged. The Ajan Spruce is the representative of the northern island of Japan, while the Hondo is the representative of the main island of that country. Perhaps the question may be set at rest between these two, and the occupation of the controversialists 1220 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES with regard to them be brought to a timely end, by the explorer, E. H. Wilson, who was making an expedition there in 1914.1. We will, as far as any reference goes to them here, run them in couples and treat them as one. The differences of their cones may be a help to the identification of the Japanese trees and the Sitka. From the many thousand specimens fallen from the Sitka, and that I have had before me, the cones have always been of.a uniform size, and that size is 2 in. long. Of the Japanese tree, and from cones sent me from that country, the Hondo and Ajan are con- siderably longer than the specimens of our home- grown Sitka, but the point of difference to note is that while the margins of the scales of the Sitka cones, are only minutely frayed in appearance, and even sometimes slightly wavy or entire, the Japanese representatives present torn and tattered appearance of margin with their jagged edges. The leaves of the Japanese, too, are shorter. This disposes of the list of the up-to-date naturalized Spruces which have made appearance in our islands, with the exception of the MorinporpEs (now re- christened Spinulosa), a native of Sikkim. This tree has the appearance of a short-leaved Morinda, or Smithiana (Himalayan Weeping Spruce), and several we saw in a very promising condition have come to untimely ends, at even such climatically favoured situations as Castlewelan, County Down. 1 E. H. Wilson’s ultimatum on this long-standing vexed question, after a careful investigation of the two trees in their native islands, Hondo and Hokkaido, during his 1914~16 expedition, gives out that they are one and the same tree, the Hondoensis and Ajanensis; and, moreover, that they are the only flat-leaved Spruce, so far found, existent in N,-E. Asia and Japan, P. MORINDOIDES AND BREWERIANA 123 Group II.—Omorica, BREWERIANA (SHOOTS PUBESCENT) The BREWERIANA, which shows a fastigiate-looking crop of leaves, is stillrarer. Probably at this moment the length of all the trees of this species in cultivation with us here would not reach higher than the length of a long man, 6 ft. high in his stockings. If ever the day dawns when either the Morindoides or Breweriana has learnt to flourish in our country, there will not be, we apprehend, much difficulty in dealing with their identities. All these Weeping Spruces exhibit a certain out- ward and visible resemblance. While the Smithiana (or Morinda) and the Shrenkiana have four-angled leaves, the Himalayan Morindoides and the American- Breweriana sport flat leaves, an emphatic difference easily discerned. As between the Morindoides (or Spinulosa) and the Breweriana, there exist these marked differences. The branchlets of the Morindoides are glabrous and the branchlets of the Breweriana pubescent. Again, the cones of the Morindoides are rather larger at the base than they are at the top, and the margin of their cone scales are frayed ; while those of the Breweriana are narrow at both extremities, especially so at their very marked tapering base. The margins of their cone scales also differ, and are rounder in shape and entire on margin. IV TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS (OF THE NATURAL ORDER OF CONIFERZA, oF THE FAMILY PINACE, or THE TRIBE ABIETINE, OF THE GENUS PICEA, AND SUB-DIVISION TSUGA) INTRODUCTORY O Hemlock tree! O Hemlock tree! How faithful are thy branches, Green not alone in summer-time, But in the winter’s frost and rime, O Hemlock tree! O Hemlock tree! How faithful are thy- branches, LonGFELLow, WE who perforce in early days of life sallied or were sent forth from home in quest of knowledge, to drink at the Pierian springs of Greek history within the classical courts of our public schools, may be prone to jump wrongly to a conclusion that the Hemlock tree had some connection with a certain deadly drug, that we were instructed by school-books was meted out to those who were regarded in the light of a social or political inconvenience by the pro-tem. Government of the day which. ruled in mighty Athens. That the historical cup of Hemlock (xéveiov, or in Latin language, Conium Maculatum), which quenched for centuries the bold spirit of philosophy had any connection with the tree under discussion would be quite an erroneous basis for our investiga- tions. The Hemlock plant—not tree—is a _ wild umbelliferous poisonous plant of the genus Conium, 124 HEMLOCKS 125 and how our well-known tree.came by the’ same name I have been unable to ascertain. The second syllable “lock ” signifies plant, as it does in the case. of Charlock, Garlic, etc., but that leaves unexplained the “‘ Hem”; which fact seems to indicate that a stitch has been dropped somewhere in the inter- weaving of the tree’s history. We will ask pardon for a little digression upon the Hemlock plant, a subject apart in all but name from our main theme, the Hemlock tree. Of whatever ingredients the poisonous cup at Athens was com- posed, .it seemed at times to somewhat lack the quality of either potency or the blessings of quantity. It appears that in carrying out these sentences, conceived in a laudable spirit of Euthanasian finality, one little ungenerous flaw—a flaw which always seemed strongly to impress even the most unpromising student of scholastic days—had crept into their system. In a characteristic spirit of economy on the part of the democratic Government of the day, the money paid over for the dose was calculated upon with such an exact degree of nicety that at times, and unless everything went well, it barely sufficed to carry out the amiable intentions of the promoters and executors of the scheme. Socrates, whose mission it was to lecture—great. Socrates, who adored speaking at all times, and who not only adored speaking, but adorned those to whom he spoke with a cloak of infinite wisdom, was enjoined —even if imperatively, let us Hope at least in tones of politeness—by the. performing clown of the gruesome scene, at the neurotic moment of his last drink upon earth, to keep silence and hold his tongue, and for no other substantial reason than that it might retard the action of the draught, and thereby involve the executioner in an uncalled-for expenditure in the 126 TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS purchase of more poison drug from the innermost recesses of his private purse | Phocion, the Athenian general, was another of these inconsiderately treated victims of a State’s parsimony. He complained bitterly—and not with- out good reason, we think—that he was called upon to subscribe the money from his personal income upon ‘extras,’ for the purpose of enabling the executioner to brew the dose in proportions strong enough to accomplish its purpose. But, as we have said, this graceful tree, known as the Hemlock Spruce, in our midst, though it may have contrived a nominal connection with the poison- ous plant, is quite absolved from any participation in these scenes described. The Hemlock plant (Conium Maculatum) is a smooth, purple-spotted, hollow-stemmed biennial, which is practically full of poison in root, seed, stem, and leaf, and which grows in hedgerow and ditch,— a plant that is credited with killing children who partake of it in mistake for parsnips ; and violently disagreeing with others who, lured on by the joys of musical delight, attempt the use of its hollow stem for penny-whistle purposes. And while on the subject, let it not be forgotten by experimentalists in these directions, and also by the guardians of flocks and herds, that there are other Hemlocks—for instance, the Water Hemlock ((Enanthe Crocata)—of um- belliferous affinity and like evil reputation, deservedly credited upon /flagrante-delicto evidences, of distri-. buting, with fatal .results, its‘ poisonous properties to man and beast. The Hemlock Spruce, on the other hand, is a dignified tree, with a grave and massive squareness of outline, with a record behind free and flawless .of crime, that occupies frontal positions on many a lawn and pleasure-ground ; and, moreover, is a tree which no one has ever repented HEMLOCK SPRUCES 127 of planting, or ever been called to repentance for having planted. There is no more goodly tree in Christendom. It would make an interesting incursion into the realms of imagination to hazard an idea as to what impressions a Hemlock Spruce would create in the mind of anyone suddenly called into the presence of tree-life for the first time and asked to dissociate them one from another. If, for instance, they were called in before the Flood,—a rather extreme meta- morphic process once suggested by Voltaire—and had placed before them branches, say, of a Hemlock, Silver Fir, and Yew, for the purposes of dissociation, generically and tribally, what opinion would they form of their relative alikes and unalikes ? There may be said to be a certain rough-and-ready resemblance between the leaves of the Hemlock and those of the Silver Fir, since the leaf appearance of the Hemlock has a look of a minuter edition of the Silver Fir. That is a result which takes very little disposing of to-day, but it might have taken longer once, and not have been arrived at so easily. It will be seen on closer inspection that— (1) The leaves of the Hemlock are mounted on those same little projections that the Spruces’ are, and the Silver Firs’ arising from circular bases are not, as has been pointed out on previous pages. (2) The bark of the Hemlock is red-brown, that of the Silver Fir of a grey colour. . (3) The shape of the head of the tree and the foliage arrangement are more after the manner of the generality of hard-wood trees, and look as broad in effect as they are high, while the Silver Fir towers to the heavens with church-spire grandeur. The 128 TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS branches of the Hemlock jut out irregularly from all sides of its. trunk the branches of the Silver Fir are regularly whorled—that is to say, shaped after the Radiata outline of a starfish arranged round a central axis, or the spokes of a cart-wheel laid upon the ground. The leaves of the Silver Fir are notched at the apex, those of the Hemlock are not. The cones of the Silver Fir are upright’ and large, those of the Hemlock pendulous and small, and so ad infinitum, Then there is the question of the Yew. The leaves may be arranged similarly, and there begins and énds any similitude. Its leaves are much longer than the Hemlock’s. Underneath them the colour is yellow- green, showing no white stomata bands as do the Hemlock’s. The twigs of the Yew are yellow-green and smooth, those of the Hemlock large and downy. Thus is disposed of any hint of relationship. between the two, without even trenching on the subject of the wide difference of their fruits. All these little disquisitions on obvious differences may read to some like a return to the more primal ways of nursery life, but it must be admitted in equal fairness that infants must walk before they run, and that the lower rungs of the ladder of knowledge must first be trod before the heights can be scaled. SPECIES AND VARIETIES OF HEMLOCK SPRUCE. FIRS Where‘ the hemlocks grew so dark That I.stopped to look and hark, WHITTIER, The list of Hemlock Spruces in cultivation in Great Britain consists of seven species, to which we have HOOKERIANA OR PATTONIANA 129 added the latest Chinese importation, and _ this specimen we will eliminate from our discussions summarily, with the remark that the descriptions of the newly imported Western China trees are re- servoirs that so far even the most athirst can only hope to sip from. Before instituting any comparison of the differences of the remaining more fraternal seven, we can dismiss from troubling us, upon any question of identifying, the T. Pattoniana, and for the reason that it does not conform to the in other cases strictly observed custom of wearing the leaves in pectinate arrange- ment. Besides this unorthodox radial arrangement of its much narrower leaves, it breaks another rule by sporting stomatic bands on both the upper and lower side of its leaves. These traits in its character render it easily distinguishable from other Hemlock Spruces ; but before leaving the subject of this West American tree, variously alluded to as Hookeriana, Mertensiana, and Pattoniana, we should like to add a personal expression of opinion upon it. Notwith- standing these deviations from the paths of strict Hemlock Sprucian rectitude, this tree, which was introduced in 1854, has undoubtedly winning ways with it. From all accounts, it prefers a certain humidity of atmosphere ; and had it lived in mytho- logical days, doubtless it would have been committed to the care of Dione, the goddess of moisture, or to some clique of sorrowing and Stellular Sisters whose mission it was to shed tears and produce rain-drops. Had it been relegated to the especial attention of the great cloud-compellor himself, Jupiter, son of Kronos and lord of the storm-cloud, it would have deserved the high patronage showered upon it. Whatever is required to be showered upon it, and whatever is showered upon it, we firmly believe that blessings will be bountifully poured by posterity upon those 130 TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS who plant it to-day, and recall yet another Whittier description : How yonder Ethiopian hemlock, Crowned with his glistening circlet, stands, What jewels light his swarthy hands. For the purposes of identification one way we might suggest would be to divide the remaining six into two groups, and seek help from the diversity of shape in the leaf margins. In the case of the T. Canadensis, T. Albertiana, T. Brunoniana, the leaves are serrulate. In the case of the T. Sieboldii, T. Diversifolia, T. Caroliniana, the leaves are entire. We must make this reservation with regard to this method of identifying—namely, that these dis- tinctions, as between serrulate and entire, by reason of the almost invisible obscurity of these leaf marginal signs, do not extend to the groping student, even with the aid of magnifying glasses, that generous help that might have been expected from the promising announcement. Loudon describes the T. CANADENSIS as slightly denticulate, so it is not to be wondered that more amateur and unequipped observers have difficulty in finding the signs with the naked eye. Under a good glass you can perceive clearly some little perch- back-looking protuberances, situate at rather long intervals apart, and this proclaims their serrulation. Of all Hemlocks perhaps the T. Canadensis and the T. ALBERTIANA show the nearest resemblance, and. ‘since they are the same tree of the same country, only with a different geographical habitat, there is no particular reason why they should not. Perhaps their greatest difference exists in their shape and growth. As the Deodar differs from the Cedar of THE HEMLOCK GROUP 131 Lebanon and grows in shape of slender spire against a sky, so similarly does the T. Albertiana differ from the T. Canadensis. While the more Western Hemlock at quieter rate of growth tapers upward, the Canadian Hemlock, like the Cedar of Lebanon, displays a lateral top growth, which nursery gardeners more bluntly call clump-headed. Two more signs of recognition must be looked for, as between these two, the stalkless cone and less- defined hue of the white stomata on lower side of leaf of the new-comer, by which the Albertiana pro- claims his whence and title to a separate name. T. BRUNONIANA is the other of the serrulate-leafed trio, the Himalayan represéntative of the: Hemlock Spruces. Its much longer leaves, their brilliantly- lighted-up silvery under-surface, their longer conical- shaped yellow-brown cones, make the tree, which unfortunately. does not acclimatize well with us, an easy target for identification. We now come to the entire-leaved-margin trio— namely, the T. SreBorpu, T. Diversiroiia, T. CAROLINIANA. Of these the T. Sieboldii asserts the individuality alone among Hemlocks of glabrous shoots.. Its leaf is longer than any except that of the Brunoniana. From the Brunoniana it also differs, as has been pointed out, in leaf margin. There is yet another ' marked difference. While the apex of the leaf of the Brunoniana -is acute, that of the Sieboldii is rounded and notched. The Sieboldii also again can be distinguished from another Japanese representative, the Diversifolia, by the fact that its shoots are glabrous while the Diversifolia’s are pubescent. The Caroliniana Hemlock, discovered by Professor. Gibbes in the Blue Ridge mountains of N. and S. 0 132. TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS Carolina, reads in description very similar to that of the Diversifolia, of which it is the American repre- sentative. Sometimes difficulties of recognition have a way of clearing a way for themselves.