i 



an area extending from Thessaly and Epirus to Euboea, 

 and thence to Attica and those parts of the Peloponnesos 

 east of Achaia and east and south of Arcadia. In 

 Attica, therefore, the areas of Halacsy's two varieties 

 overlap, and from his descriptions we gather that the 

 diagnosis of the two is equally uncertain. From 

 true A. cephalonica, which has ' acuminate mucronate- 

 pungent ' leaves, he separates var. Apollinis with leaves 

 more or less * acute,' adding, however, that he can find 

 no other difference in the living tree, and that among trees 

 of the Mount Parnassos variety he finds intermediates 

 approaching the Cephalonian type ; some of the specimens 

 cited under the variety may, he states, perhaps belong 

 rather to the type. The case for the fusion of the two 

 forms, we now know, is even stronger than Halacsy has 

 indicated, for leaves of cone-bearing branches of the 

 Silver Fir from Cephalonia itself are more often * acute ' 

 than * acuminate and pungent ' ; on the other hand, 

 juvenile states of the Mount Parnassos tree have leaves 

 quite as pungent as those which were originally observed 

 in the young Cephalonian specimens from which the 

 figures of Loudon and Forbes were drawn. The con- 

 clusion arrived at by Unger seems therefore to be fully 

 justified ; in the Greek Silver Fir we have to deal with 

 but one somewhat unstable species within which we 

 cannot, so far as existing knowledge goes, distinguish 

 with safety even local races. As cultivated in this 

 country, A. cephalonica is one of the most thriving of 

 Virs ; an example at Barton, in Suffolk, has attained a 

 height of 100 feet. It likes a deep loamy moist soil 

 and is perfectly hardy. It may be raised from either 

 imported or home-ripened seeds. From other Silver 

 Firs grown in England it is readily distinguished by its 

 radially in place or more or less pectinately arranged 

 leaves which have acute or eharply pointed tips. The 

 tree from which the material for our plate was derived 

 is in the collection of Mr. L. N. Baxendale, Greenham 

 Lodge, Newbury. 



Description. — Tree up to 100 ft. in height; trunk 

 3-4 ft. in diameter ; bark grey -brown, afterwards break- 

 ing into small oblong flakes; branches long, horizontal 



