142 TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS 



yet arrived. When that time comes it will be found, 

 we dare predict, that, as it is a tree blest with so 

 many other distinguishing marks peculiar to itself, 

 it can quite well afford to dispense with extra emphasis 

 on this particular cone phase. 



Some of us who have had cones and branchlets sent 

 home to us fondly imagine that no difficulties in 

 the way of giving this tree its right name at a glance 

 will arise and stare anyone iiji the face, upon that 

 day, whenever or if ever it dawns, that the Lyall 

 larch learns to make his presence felt and seen 

 among us. 



The first thing that strikes the eye, as you look 

 for the first time upon a sample of Lyall, you are 

 struck with the ostentatious display of branchlet and 

 bud. The branchlets look as if bleached in streaks 

 with bands of white lines, and the buds as if plastered 

 with a profuse application of the scatterings of a 

 powder-puff. 



We read from time to time stories of scenic effects 

 produced by them from travellers who have made 

 pilgrimages to see them in their own Montana home, 

 where they flourish in scenes of Alpine grandeur at 

 some 6,000 feet above sea-level. Such an account I 

 read, written by Mr. F. R. Balfour (in our Arbori- 

 cultural Journal, if I remember aright). In it he 

 describes the vivid delight he experienced as a tree- 

 lover at a sight of it there. 



But a spectacle here like this there seems little 

 chance of futurity ever beholding, a fact we regret 

 when we reflect what a pre-eminently irradiating 

 green coat has God given these trees. They flourish — 

 alas ! — ^far away, but if they grew in the garden of 

 the Hesperides itself the chance of seeing them in 

 their prime, for most of us, could not be more remote. 



L. Griffithii comes from the Himalayas, and 



