IRISH GARDENING, 



67 



Most of the species are valuable forest trees 

 in their native countries; but only Piuus 

 Strobus has been planted for timber, and that 

 very rarely, in the British Isles. It covers vast 

 tracts in America, yielding a very useful wood, 

 known in the import timber trade as yellow 

 pine, a misnomer, as its correct name, in- 

 variably used in the United States, is white 

 pine. It has lately been attacked in New 

 England and the adjoining States by a destruc- 

 tive fungus, Peridermium Strobi, which was 

 introduced by seedlings from a German nursery 

 in 1906, and is now s[)reading to an alarming 

 extent. This fungus occurs in this country, 

 and renders very risky the cultivation of any 

 of the white pines on a commercial scale. The 

 Alexican and Western American species also 

 yield excellent timber; but are only planted 

 in Europe as ornamental trees. 



Pinus Peuke forms Moods of considerable 

 extent in Bulgaria and Macedonia, but is 

 scarcely an important source of timber. It 

 grows well on sandy soil at Kew. 



Pinus parviflora, often seen in botanic 

 gardens, forms a very small spreading tree, 

 M-hich is usually covered with dark-coloured 

 old cones, as it produces fruit in great abund- 

 ance. 



Piuus excelsa is known as the blue pine in 

 India, where it is widely spread throughout 

 the Himalayas at considerable elevations, 

 yielding an excellent timber, used for planking, 

 doors, windows, furniture, and tea boxes. It 

 is also occasionally tapped for resin. As usually 

 grown in this country, it forms when isolated 

 a wide-spreading ornamental tree, with the 

 branches curving upwards at their extremities. 

 At Glasnevin, besides the young tree from 

 which the branch shown in the illustration was 

 taken, there are two old specimens. The 

 largest examples occur in the south and east 

 of England, where trees 90 feet in height 

 have been measured. In Ireland, owing to 

 the strong prevailing winds, this species like 

 many others is checked in its upward growth, 

 the tallest specimen that I have seen being a 

 tree in a sheltered position at Courtown, whicli 

 was 70 feet high and 9 feet in girth in 1910. 

 It seems comparatively indifferent to soil, 

 growing best in good deep loam, and is one of 

 the pines that may be planted on limestone 

 successfully. It is very rarely seen in planta- 

 tions ; but in a mixed wood of oak and beech 

 at Ballyraine, near Arklow, there were in 1917 

 four trees about 50 feet high, with clear stems 

 and narrow crowns, which had grown as fast 

 as Scots pines under the same forestry con- 

 ditions. 



Winter and Early Spring in the 

 Rock Garden. 



Although the pat-t winter was ushered in Mith 

 severe weather, the frost, if keen, was of short 

 duration, and was followed by cool and fairly 

 dry conditions. On the whole the tender plants 

 have suffered very little, but curiously enough 

 Lithospermum rosmarinifolium, which came 

 safely through the very severe winter of 1916- 

 17, died off suddenly in March, after blooming 

 lavishly during December, January and Feb- 

 ruary. Kaoulia australis is also dead, but it also 

 failed to survive the previous winter in a 

 different position, and either it does not like me, 

 or I have not found out its secret. Polemo- 

 nium confertum mellitum, after flourishing for 

 seven years, 'has departed; possibly through old 

 age, but happily, it is succeeded by vigorous 

 offspring. I have sung its praises before, but 

 it deserves all that can be said for it. 



All the Saxifrages have come through the 

 winter well, but the Burseriana group has not 

 been quite so generous with blossom as last 

 year, and some pieces of Gloria have rusted 

 away. 



Pruntjs Dasycarpa. 



