Abies 
Douglasii 
142 ARBORETUM NOTES. 
CONIPER:2 
and though of late it seems to have somewhat 
recovered, its top looks thin and unsatisfactory ; 
even its lower branches are less well clothed 
than formerly, and it can no longer be calleda 
very fine tree. I suspect that its roots have 
reached down to some soil which does not agree 
with them, probably one in which there is too 
much chalk. When measured (roughly), by Sir 
Frederick Grey in 186—, this tree was nearly 
seventy feet high. 
The circumference of the trunk at three feet 
from the ground is seven feet four inches. (De- 
cember, 1869). 
The next best Douglas Fir that we have, is near 
the laundry, beside the footpath going to the 
Livermere lane. I do not find any note of the 
date of planting. 
Another in the arboretum* (near the A¢sculus 
Indica), has a curious peculiarity in its growth. 
All the side branches and their subdivisions, 
down to the youngest shoots, but especially the 
branches of a few years old, have a most curiously 
wavy and serpentine character; each year’s growth 
forming a graceful arch; the sinuosity being 
always in a vertical plane; so that the direction 
of a branch of some years old has been compared 
to the received idea of the Sea Serpent. 
Something of this peculiar sinuosity may be 
* Planted by Frederick William Freeman, stepson of Sir George Napier, 
