146 DR. HOOKER—PINUS PEUCE AND P. EXCELSA. 
varies from 40 feet at its lowest altitude to a tortuous bush 4 feet 
high at its uppermost. 
In Dr. Grisebach’s narrative of his journey this Pine was 
regarded as a variety of P. Cembra, the only other five-leaved Pine 
of Europe; but in his excellent ‘Spicilegium Flore Rumelice 
et Bithynice’ (ii. 350) it is described as a new species, inter- 
mediate between P. Strobus and P. Cembra. Unfortunately in 
that work the seed is stated in the diagnosis not to be winged, 
and, in the detailed description, to be surrounded with a narrow 
wing only, instead of having the large broad wing of P. excelsa 
and P. Strobus. This observation seems to have misled all succeed- 
ing botanists, as Endlicher, Loudon, Gordon, &e., who have all 
referred P. Peuce to the Cembra group. 
Nothing further seems to have been known of this plant for a 
quarter of a century, indeed till the other day, when Messrs. 
Haage and Sehmidt, of Erfurt, sent to Sir W. Hooker branches 
with ripe cones, gathered in the forest that Dr. Grisebach dis- 
covered, by M. Orphanides, late Curator of the Royal Gardens 
at Athens. These, on being received at Kew, were at once 
recognized as being identical with either P. excelsa of India or 
P. Strobus of America, and inquiries were instantly made of Messrs. 
Haage and Schmidt as to the authority for the habitat, &e. Every 
confirmation was at once supplied, and Dr. Grisebach, who has 
since been communicated with, has also expressed his opinion of 
the genuineness of the rediscovery. Messrs. Haage and Schmidt 
also, at our suggestion, compared the specimens and seeds with 
those of P. excelsa, and pronounced them identical with the latter. 
It only remains to observe, that we have again carefully ex- 
amined P. Peuce, and failed to find any difference between the 
Indian and Macedonian plants. The former is one of the best- 
known Himalayan trees, extending throughout the whole range 
of the Himalaya, from Assam to Afghanistan (the small province 
of Sikkim alone excepted), at elevations of from 4000—8000 feet. 
In the more humid eastern districts its leaves are longer and more 
flaccid; in the drier western, shorter, and altogether similar to 
those of P. Peuce. It has been found nowhere between Mace- 
donia (long. 21? E.) and Afghanistan (long. 70? E.), an extent 
of upwards of 2200 miles. 
It is not my purpose to enter into any discussion upon the 
many curious reflections to which this interesting discovery must 
give rise, of which the most noticeable are, that no record of à 
plant so conspicuous, and so widely different from any known 
