336 
XXXVI.—THE INTRODUCTION OF THE SPRUCE 
FIR INTO BRITAIN. 
L. A. Boone. 
A fragment of wood was sent to Kew not long ago by Major 
A. Farquharson, as the identification of “the wood was 
desired in connection with a matter of historic interest, the 
specimen being a portion of a pole thought to belong to the banner 
of Scotland captured in the battle of Pinkie in 1547. 
An examination of the specimen led to the conclusion that the 
wood is either Spruce or Larch. 
These two trees are not native in Great Britain*, but have 
been grown in the country for a long = Botanical works 
were therefore consulted for statements as to the dates of intro- 
duction of Larch and Spruce. The anaes elicited gives no 
evidence thai either of these had been introduced as early as 1547. 
- A note on the subject has been drawn up, for the reason that a 
misapprehension appears to have arisen in the case of the records 
relating to the Spruce. 
A reference to the Larch ees grown in Britain is made by 
Parkinson (Paradisus Terrestris, 1629, p. 608), and this is 
apparently the earliest record, as sta ted by Loudon (Arboretum 
et fruticetum Rama 1838, oT 4, p. 2358). Parkinson 
writes as follo “The Larch tree where it naturally grow eth, 
riseth up to ae as fall as the Pine or Firre tree, but in our land 
being rare, and noursed up but with a few, and those only 
lovers of rarities, it groweth both slowly and hecanith not high.” 
Thirty-five years after the date of Parkinson’s ‘‘ Paradisus ” 
the larch still appears to have va rare, but there was at least 
one good-sized specimen in t count This is referred 
hey Evelyn in his “‘ Sylva’”’ ( 1664, p- 57) as follows :—‘“‘ That 
whic 
now grows somewhere about Chelmsford in Essex, arriv’d 
negligence and want of industry.’’ That large trees were still 
common a hundred and twenty years later i is — by the 
fact that in the 1786 edition of the ‘ Sylva’’ (vo 
as an object lesson. Young trees we + however abundant, the 
larch being stated (vol. 1, p. 80) to be ‘now very common in 
One may einclade with Elwes and Henry (The Trees of Great 
Britain and Ireland, ii., 1907, p. 353) ‘that the Larch was 
probably introduced at about the beginning of the seventeenth 
century 
An earlier date of introduction is claimed for the — by 
_* The Spruce (Picea sein: tank) was fusmocl indigenows, remains of 
this species having been found in the Ssovegnty al Cromer Forest-bed at 
different localities in Norfolk, though unknown in Britain in Fabre o deporte: 
See Clement Reid, The Origin of the British Fl Flore (1899), p. 151. 
