DWABF AND 8L0W-0E0WIN0 CONIFERS 



My first business, and a very length}^ one it proved, was 

 to search out and to collect together in my garden all the 

 forms I could obtain at home and abroad, and compare 

 them (a) with each other, and (b) with any recorded 

 descriptions. 



One result of my search was the discovery that many of 

 the recorded forms were either no longer in cultivation 

 or no longer procurable. Another result was the acquisi- 

 tion of a considerable number of forms — masquerading 

 under well-known names — which did not correspond 

 exactly with any recorded description; and when I came 

 to search for descriptions of recorded forms, in many cases 

 I found them absent, and in most cases totally inadequate. 

 Nurserymen are notoriously careless about nomenclature, 

 but in the case of dwarf conifers they have much to excuse 

 them ; for instance, a nurseryman could hardly be blamed 

 if he sent out any dwarf form of Picea excelsa as " var. 

 brevifolia," for its description in Gordon's "Pinetum" is 

 merely " a distinct pygmy with small leaves "! Even 

 Professor Beissner of Bonn, to whose researches we owe 

 the recording of over 150 forms, and to whom all 

 growers of dwarf conifers owe a debt of gratitude, greatly 

 lessens the value of his wonderful and painstaking 

 " Handbuch der Nadelholzkunde," by similar inadequate 

 descriptions, and also by omitting to state where the 

 form described originated, or was to be found. Con- 

 sequently, very many of the forms which he described can 

 no longer be traced, and it is impossible to decide from 

 some of his descriptions whether certain of his forms are 

 identical or not with forms appearing in Nursery Cata- 

 logues under different names. 



I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to rectify this 

 by supplying, whenever I have had an opportunity of 

 examining a form, a description of it sufficiently explicit 

 to distinguish it, and also, in the case of rare forms not in 

 general cultivation, by stating where, at the present time, 

 a plant of it is to be found. 



