CHAMJECTPABIS 43 



A dwarf, compact, slow-growing conical shrub. 

 Branches ascending ; branchlets crowded, short, irregular ; 

 branchlet tips congested and sometimes cockscomb-like. 

 The secondary branchlets short, crowded, four-sided, and 

 very bright green. Leaves oval, pointed, closely and 

 regularly imbricated in four rows of a beautiful glossy 

 bright green; the secondary side branchlets make a 

 decurving hand-shaped spray of three or four opposite 

 pairs of short branchlets with a central long one, and, as 

 all are decurved, a branchlet viewed from one side looks 

 not unhke a shrimp with its legs extended. 



This very distinct form was introduced to England, 

 according to Gordon, by Barron of Elvaston Nurseries and 

 Smyth of Worcester, who imported it from Japan. In 

 the 1875 edition of the " Pinetum " Gordon mentions the 

 fact that Barron had a form with fohage " tipped with 

 rich gold," and, curiously enough, it is this form, var. 

 tetragona aurea, which is now in cultivation. In exposed 

 situations the lower portions of its branchlets lose their 

 leaves. The finest specimen I have seen is growing in 

 the Arboretum at Castle wellan, Co. Down. There, in 

 rich soil and in a very sheltered spot, it has made a 

 pyramidal shrub over 5 feet high and about 15 feet in 

 circumference, every branchlet clothed in foliage from 

 base to apex. The green form I can no longer trace in 

 any garden or nursery list. This plant transplants very 

 badly, and should, if possible, be obtained only out of 

 pots. Messrs. Barron inform me that they have lost the 

 green form. 



C. obtusa, var. tetragona minima. 



Syn. : var. Pygmoea, Hort (not Carr.) ; 

 var. minima densa, Hort. 

 A minute, dense cushion of light green foliage, sixteen- 

 year-old plants being only a few inches high by about 

 half as many more across. Sending out a dense mass of 

 ascending branches about I inch long, bare at their base, 



