8 DWABF AND SLOW-GROWING CONIFEBS 



Where no such amplified description appears, it means 

 that the form has so far been unobtainable, and I have 

 simply given whatever description of it appears in the 

 work of the author who records it. 



As a further verification of identity, I had to trace, 

 for comparison, old specimens still existing in Botanic 

 Gardens and private collections, which from their age and 

 origin were likely to be true to name, and in this I was 

 unexpectedly fortunate, for I found a considerable number 

 of specimens exceeding seventy years of age — planted, no 

 doubt, during the 1850-60 boom. For instance, the 

 original Picea excelsa, var. Clanhrasiliana, or a portion 

 of it — now over 150 years old — is still growing in the 

 Earl of Roden's Park at Tullymore, Co. Down; and in 

 America at Geneva, N.Y., Professor Sargent and Mr. 

 Dunbar traced portions of the original Picea excelsa, var. 

 Maxwelli (long ousted in Europe by an impostor), and 

 so on. So that one way and another I have been able to 

 clear up many difficulties. Possibly I might have achieved 

 more; but the war intervened in the midst of my re- 

 searches, and the post-war conditions on the Continent are 

 not favourable to the propagation of stock of this nature. 

 Regel and Kesselrings plants at Petrograd are gone. 

 Famous nurseries, like those of Hesse of Weener, Spath of 

 Berlin, and Simon-Louis of Metz, have been short-handed 

 and their stocks depleted or lost, and a few small nurseries 

 in Austria and Russia are inaccessible — if they still exist. 

 In all the circumstances I do not see much likelihood of 

 further information being forthcoming, and I must only 

 console myself with the fact that so much material had 

 been collected before the war intervened. 



Situation and Soil. — Wherever dwarf conifers are grown, 

 they should be kept away from taller things. In the 

 Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, they are grown 

 by themselves on a slightly sloping grass hill; a similar 

 situation has been selected for them at Glasnevin Botanic 

 Gardens in Dublin. Used judiciously in the Rock Garden 



