122 PICE^, OR SPRUCE TREES 



with regard to them be brought to a timely end, 

 by the explorer, E. H. Wilson, who was making an 

 expedition there in 1914.^ We will, as far as any 

 reference goes to them here, run them in couples 

 and treat them as one. 



The differences of their cones may be a help to the 

 identification of the Japanese trees and the Sitka. 

 From the many thousand specimens fallen from the 

 Sitka, and that I have had before me, the cones have 

 always been of a uniform size, and that size is 2 in. 

 long. 



Of the Japanese tree, and from cones sent me 

 from that country, the Hondo and Ajan are con- 

 siderably longer than the specimens of our home- 

 grown Sitka, but the point of difference to note is 

 that while the margins of the scales of the Sitka 

 cones are only minutely frayed in appearance, and 

 even sometimes slightly wavy or entire, the Japanese 

 representatives present torn and tattered appearance 

 of margin with their jagged edges. The leaves of 

 the Japanese, too, are shorter. 



This disposes of the list of the up-to-date naturalized 

 Spruces which have made appearance in our islands, 

 with the exception of the Morindoides (now re- 

 christened Spinulosa), a native of Sikkim. This tree 

 has the appearance of a short-leaved Morinda, or 

 Smithiana (Himalayan Weeping Spruce), and several 

 we saw in a very promising condition have come to 

 untimely ends, at even such climatically favoured 

 situations as Castlewelan, County Down. 



1 E. H. Wilson's ultimatum on this long-standing vexed question, 

 after a careful investigation of the two trees in their native islands, 

 Hondo and Hokkaido, during his 1914-16 expedition, gives out that 

 they are one and the same tree, the Hondoensis and Ajanensis ; and, 

 moreover, that they are the only fiat-leaved Spruce, so far found, 

 existent in N.-E. Asia and Japan. 



