MR 8ELBY ON PINU8 STLYESTRIS. 69 



Notice of a curious and anomalous production of Cones upon the Pinus 

 sylvestris, Scotch Fir. By P. J. Selby, Esq. of Twizell House. 



In the course of thiftning a plantation of about twelve years' growth, 

 I mot with the anomalous production now submitted to the inspection of 

 the Club, and which T thought might be acceptable to our Botanical 

 Members, as being a striking and interesting illustration of that general 

 law, admitted and believed by all the eminent botanists of the present 

 age, viz., that the various parts of which flowers, seed-vessels, and fruits 

 are composed, are only modifications of the leaves, more especially, as I 

 am inclined to suppose, such a lusus of rare occurrence, the present being 

 the only instance I have ever yet mot with in thinning any plantation, 

 an operation in which I have been more or less engaged during the last 

 thirty years. 



The tree from which the specimens were taken, was a common Scotch 

 fir, Pinus sylvcstns, of the ago above mentioned, and about thirteen feet 

 high. It grew, surrounded by three or four stout larches, but was vigo- 

 rous and apparently in excellent health, as the strength and the length 

 of the shoots of the last and former years plainly indicated. Two of 

 the three shoots now exhibited, it will be obsei-ved, are those of the last 

 season, one shewing the embryo cones surrounding the whole circum- 

 ference of the shoot for the greater part of its length, occupying the 

 exact places which, under common circumstances, would have emitted fas- 

 cicles of leaves, a few of which, it maybe observed, are interspersed among 

 the young cones where they do not cover the whole circumference ; the 

 second (Plate I.) shows the cones mostly confined to one side of the shoot, 

 where they represent the leaves, the other side being clothed with its due 

 portion of true leaves or spicula. The third is a shoot of the previous 

 year, and the first, it would appear, in which the tree shewed any symp- 

 toms of this anomalous growth, as none of the shoots of preceding years 

 werefound to be similarly affected. Upon this shoot the cones, like those 

 ordinarily produced by the species, have attained a considerable size by 

 the additional year's growth (Plate II. half the nat. size), shewing them 

 to be true cones, and in all probability, if they had been allowed to pro- 

 ceed to maturity, capable of producing perfect seeds. The present in- 

 stance, I may add, is at variance with what usually takes place in re- 

 gard to the common pine, P. sylveslrisy and other species of the genus Pi- 

 nus and genus Ahics, in cases where cones are produced at any early 

 age, inasmuch as this occurs to the greatest extent when the plants are 



