242 TAXACE^ 



It is possible that constant opportunity might lessen 

 the difficulties. They still remain to many like the 

 twin brothers Castor and Pollox 



So like they were, no mortal 

 Might one from other know. 



Personally I have ignominiously failed to learn, or 

 discern, a short cut to a safe landing-stage on this 

 question. My conclusions result in the subjoined 

 reductio ad absurdum : 



C. Fortunei. Branches more slender 

 and less divided 



„ „ Scaly stalks of flowers 



shorter . 



„ „ Leaves with finer points. 



than C. 

 Pedunculata. 



After this failure I can onl}^, and in all ill-nature, wish, 

 if any one is asked which is w^hich or why is which, 

 joy and satisfaction in answer. 



As the C. Pedunculata may be a cross between the 

 C. Fortunei and the C. Drupacea, it is perhaps no 

 cause for wonder that likenesses ensue, but the 

 C. Fortunei seems to have been very much the 

 prepotent factor of the arrangement. While authori- 

 ties say that the number of stomata on the lower 

 surface range from eighteen to twenty-one, the 

 number of lines on a leaf before me are clearly 

 twenty-four. 



We ought not to leave the subject before calling 

 identifiers' attention to a fastigiate form of this tree, 

 and one not at all uncommonly seen. Its leaves 

 spread from all sides of the stem upon its vertical 

 branches, and it has no lateral branches with leaves 

 arrayed in pectinate form. As the Yew one day 

 produced a sort of unexplained fastigiate freak in 

 the so-called Irish Yew, so has its long-leaved affinity. 



