108 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Fagus sylvatica purpurea (purple beech), girthing 10 feet 
3 inches at 5 feet up, with beautifully rounded head of 
very dark shade, being the largest of many specimens. 
Quercus asplenifolia, or fern-leaved oak—a young tree with 
pleasing feathery habit, 33 feet high, 
Q. variegata argentea—a beautiful object on the lawn, girthing 
3 feet 9 inches, with healthy, well-marked foliage. 
Q. pyramidalis, fifty years old, and fully as many feet high. 
Its branches press upward close to the stem, imparting 
to the tree the habit of the Lombardy poplar. It is 
said to be the best specimen of this variety in Germany. 
Liriodendron tulipifera, or tulip tree, 60 feet high and 7 feet 
in girth. 
We also observed a 40 feet high weeping beech, with 10-feet 
pendants; also a tall weeping ash, having a bole of 6 feet 
4 inches in circumference, and covering a space of 36 feet 
diameter with its gracefully hanging branches. Elms, planes, and 
maples of various kinds and goodly sizes, with black Italian 
and other poplars about the ponds, diversify the landscape in 
these beautiful grounds; while bordering on them are many fine 
silver firs running up to over 100 feet high, and often measuring 
3 to 4 feet in diameter and upwards at a man’s height. 
Now and again all over the neighbourhood the common oak is 
met with in trees of fair proportions, containing excellent timber. 
The castle of Reinhardtsbrun, including the grounds in which 
these trees grow, is far inland, and stands at an altitude of about 
1200 feet above the sea. The soil is chiefly a deep sandy loam. 
That portion of the Thuringian Forest which I had the privilege 
of going over extends principally to the southward of Rein- 
hardtsbrun, spreading out to east and west for many miles. The 
forest proper, which covers a mountainous range stretching north- 
west and south-east, is many miles broad, and rises to an altitude 
of over 3000 feet. The range is broken up into rounded hills, 
and intersected by glens and hollows. The hill-sides are often 
steep, but there is a great deal of easy, undulating ground. The 
geological formation consists of sandstone and the conglomerate 
rock, mural cliffs of which are frequently seen cropping out in 
the depths of the forest. 
The soil in general is composed of finely reduced sandstone, | 
with a considerable admixture of decayed vegetable matter, 
forming a close, sandy loam, moist without being wet, often 
