plentiful at 9500 feet and ascends to 12,000 feet. Griffith 
describes it as a small tree, and so Sir Joseph saw it in 
Nepal; but in Sikkim it is as much as 65 ft. high. In 
its natural habitat it prefers dry, rocky soil and grassy 
slopes, and is, like our larch, a light-loving tree. It is 
known in Sikkim as ‘Sah’ or ‘Saar,’ and is cut up in 
planks which Sir Joseph describes as soft and small but 
very durable. The drawing was made from specimens in 
cultivation at Kew, with the exception of the male catkins 
which were figured from a specimen supplied by Sir 
Edmund Loder of Leonardslee, Horsham, Sussex. 
Descriprion.— Tree 20-65 ft. high, with slender trunk, 
long branches and very long, cordlike, pendulous branchlets, 
pilose when quite young, pale at first, then dark, rough 
from the small persistent leaf-cushions. Winter buds 
globose-ovoid, inner scales hyaline, very broad, clawed, 
floccose-villous. Leaves needle-shaped, those on the cylindric 
short-shoots fascicled, 30-50, and spreading, subacute, about 
1 in. long, 3; in. wide, flat, bisulcate on both sides, 
bright green, with glaucous lines above. Male flowers 
ovoid, yellowish, tinged with red, about 4 in. long, shortly 
pedicelled ; appendage of connective small, ovate. Female 
flowers cylindric, dark-purple, over 1 in. long. Carpels 
(bracts of the older authors) lanceolate, subulate-caudate, 
reflexed from the middle; ovuliferous scales very broad, 
rotundate, half as long as the carpels. Cone cylindric, up to 
almost 3 in. long, over | in. in diameter, purplish-brown ; 
scales broad, truncate or subemarginate-obovate, up to 3 in. 
long and broad. Seed obovoid, scarcely 4 in. long; wing 
broad, obliquely elliptic, } in. long-—Orro Srapr. 
Cutrivarion.—None of the other Larches and very few 
Conifers have proved so difficult to cultivate in Great 
Britain as this Himalayan species. Seeds have been 
imported to Kew on several occasions, and asa rule they 
have germinated freely. But the young plants rarely live 
more than a few years. The average climate of Great 
Britain is doubtless unsuited for it, and the resulting ill- 
health renders it peculiarly subject to the attacks of the 
Lareh-blight (Chermes ahietis). During the last twenty 
years it has not lived to attain a greater height at Kew 
