FICEA 95 



1909 — 39 years later — 18 feet high by 16 feet broad, 

 increases my distrust of the plants he examined under that 

 name, for the original plant of the true Clanhrasiliana 

 Sit Tullymore, which is over 100 years old, has only grown 

 11 feet (including tall "reverting" branches) in that 

 sheltered genial cUmate, and the three seventy-year-old 

 bushes at Abbey leix House are all under 5 feet in height. 



P. excelsa, var. Knaptonensis. 



Buds. — Varying from tV to | inch, conical, acute, very 

 bright red. 



Branches and Branchhts . — Densely crowded and spread- 

 ing horizontally. Branches slightly ascending ; branchlets 

 slightly drooping, the whole making a flattish cushion 

 about 12 inches high by 24 inches through; branches and 

 branchlets stout and flexible. 



Main branchlets, annual growth only J to J inch, 

 spreading fanwise from the branches, so crowded as to 

 overlap each other, and having smaller secondary branch- 

 lets growing in thick clusters from the tips of the main 

 branchlets, and also sprouting out all along the upper sides 

 of these main branchlets, in such a manner that the main 

 branchlets appear covered with these secondary branchlets 

 as if with leaves. These secondary branchlets are of 

 almost imperceptible length, are surmounted by a single 

 bud surrounded by leaves — the whole being under J inch 

 and set upright at right angles to the branchlet. The 

 extraordinary density of these branchlets makes the plant 

 absolutely impenetrable to light and almost to moisture ; 

 consequently all inner portions of branches and branchlets, 

 lower than the second layer from the top, are dead, but 

 owing to the cushion shape of the plant this is impercept- 

 ible until the living foliage — which sits tightly on the dead 

 — is raised. The branchlets are bright orange-yellow and 

 glabrous. 



Leaves. — Radial, very short — tV to J inch — and thick, 

 narrowest at base, from thence gradually widening to 



