186 HARDY CONIFEROUS TREES. 



from what one sees in the English parks as could well be 

 imagined. 



To see Abies Pinsapo growing on chalk at High Elms, in 

 Kent, or Tsuga Canadensis by the margins of the Drakelow 

 Lakes at Woburn Abbey, their identification with other 

 specimens of the same species, as usually seen, would be a 

 by no means easy task for the amateur. No one, even an 

 expert in conifer nomenclature, would readily reconcile two 

 specimens of Junipenis communis collected from one of the 

 Hertfordshire or Kentish commons. Whether in habit, shape, 

 length of leaves, or general foliage tint, different specimens 

 would appear to be widely separated and hardly recognisable 

 unless by the person who studied them on their native downs. 

 But amongst all coniferous trees none would appear to vary 

 more than the justly familiar Cnpressus Lawsoniana. I have 

 often noticed in a bed of these plants raised from 

 seeds collected from one and the same tree that the 

 variability in general character is truly remarkable. Some 

 are strict and others of decidedly pendulous growth, some 

 are of a dark sombre green as compared with the silvery hue 

 of others, while some are giants and others dwarfs. Both 

 Abies Nordmanniana and A. graiidis vary greatly under 

 cultivation, and some specimens of the former that have been 

 brought under my notice are hardly distinguishable from the 

 common silver fir {A. pectinaia). Then the bifid foliage of 

 certain stages of growth of A. firma has caused much 

 uncertainty and considerable differences of opinion as to the 

 specific rank of this and other nearly allied species. 



A. bracteata, A. nobilis, A. amabilis, A. cephalonica, Pseu- 

 dotsuga Douglasii, Sequoia sempervireris, Pinus densiflora^ 

 ■Tsuga Mertensiana, Cupnssus Goveniana, C. lusitanica, and 

 various species of Torreya and CepJialotaxus all wear a re- 

 markable tint of green when growing in Ireland, and which I 

 attribute solely to the humid atmosphere combined with 

 suitable soil. 



The wide and marked differences that exist between the 

 juvenile and adult foliage of certain forms of Junipenis^ 



