72 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lv. 



ference. It is mvich planted around temples and other 

 sacred places, as well as in the private grounds of the 

 wealthy Japanese, and forms a handsome and attractive 

 feature in the landscape. It is also a valuable timber tree, 

 as the specimens of it exhibited at the Forestry Exhibition 

 at Edinburgh in 1884, by the Government of Japan, clearly 

 showed, by the excellent quality of the wood and the large 

 size of some of the planks, which wei-e nearly 3 feet across. 



The first living plant was introduced to England in 1853 

 by Mr Thomas Lobb, plant-collector for Messrs Veitch of 

 Exeter, who obtained it from the garden of the Dutch 

 Governor of Java. It arrived at the Exeter Nursery in a 

 sickly condition, and ultimately died. Eight years after- 

 wards, in 1861, cones and seeds were sent home from Japan 

 by Mr John Gould Veitch to Messrs James Veitch & Sons 

 of Chelsea, and from these most of the finest specimens of 

 the Umbrella Pine now growing in the British Isles were 

 raised. In the same year, 1861, it was also sent from 

 Japan by Mr Eobert Fortune to Mr Standish of Bagshot, 

 Surrey. 



It has proved perfectly hardy in Britain since its intro- 

 duction thirty years ago, coming through our severest winters 

 quite uninjured ; but its rate of growth is rather slow, seldom 

 exceeding 8 or 9 inches in a year. It forms a handsome 

 small tree, and is always an object of interest on a lawn or 

 in ornamental grounds from its pleasing aspect and the 

 curious umbrella-like arrangement of its leaves, or rather 

 cladodes. Among the finest specimens in Britain is a very 

 handsome one belonging to Messrs Veitch of Chelsea, 

 growing in their Coombe Wood Nursery, near Kingston-on- 

 Thames. It is one of the plants raised from the seeds sent 

 home in 1861 by Mr J. G. Veitch; and so also, I believe, 

 was the fine specimen exhibited by the firm at the Forestry 

 Exhibition in 1884. Of the many Umbrella Pines growing 

 in the Pinetums and Ornamental Grounds in the United 

 Kingdom, I am not aware of any having yet reached a 

 height of 15 feet, except it be the one referred to at Coombe 

 Wood. We have a nice small specimen in the gardens at 

 Dalkeith, planted about ten years ago. It is growing in a 

 light loam, on an open gravelly subsoil. It has always been 

 healthy, was about 18 inches high when planted, and is now 



