98 DWABF AND SLOW-GBOWING CONIFEBS 



grown plants the points of divergence noted above are 

 easily recognisable. 



The third form we must distinguish as — 



P. excelsa Gregoriana forma Parsonsii. 



This form was distributed from the S. B. Parsons 

 Nursery, Flushing, New York, under the false name of 

 var. Clanhrasiliana, to which variety it bears no resem- 

 blance. It is obviously a Gregariami form having similar 

 coloured branchlets with shght pubescence on them, 

 similar buds, and similar grey-green foliage, but it differs 

 from the two first forms in — 



(1) Habit. — It makes a much looser straggling bush; its 

 branches are more horizontally spreading and its branch- 

 lets are very pendulous. 



(2) Growth. — Its branches are sUghtly longer, making 

 an annual growth of from 1 inch to If inches, and its 

 leaves are longer, flatter, and set wider apart on the 

 branchlets. In this form the round needle-shaped leaves 

 are absent, and the leaves are never perfectly radial; in 

 most cases they are arranged pectinately. There are 

 plants of this form at the Arnold Arboretum and at High- 

 lands Park, Rochester, New York. In the latter it has 

 formed a low loose and sHghtly domed cushion under 3 feet 

 high by over 5 feet through. It is probably to be found 

 elsewhere in America, but I have only once come across 

 it in European cultivation. From the photograph of the 

 Highlands Park plant it appears to be quite distinct. 



There is yet another form in Rochester, N.Y., which 

 differs in some respects from this, but in the absence of 

 definite information I hesitate to separate it from the 

 others. Its growth is nearly twice as vigorous as that of 

 No. 2; its branchlets are red-brown, not grey-brown, and 

 its pubescence is more marked, more widely scattered, 

 and softer; its buds are the same. At first sight it looks 

 simply like a rank- growing form No. 2, but in some 

 respects it seems nearer to P. rubra than to P. excelsa. 



