HARDY CONIFEROUS TREES 119 



durable both in and out of doors. According 

 to the soil and site so will be the growth of the 

 tree, and I have known a specimen that was planted 

 under exceptionally favourable conditions to attain 

 the height of 43 feet in twenty years. Specimens 

 both in England -and Scotland exceed 120 feet in 

 height. In a letter received from the Hon. Mark 

 Rolle, P. sitchensis, P. morinda, and several other 

 species have, judging from the measurements given, 

 done well, and attained to large size at Bicton, in 

 Devonshire. At Murthly Castle, Perthshire, the 

 Sitka Spruce, planted in 1845, is 126 feet high, 

 the stem at 5 feet up girthing 13 1 feet. This is 

 a valuable tree for afforesting purposes. 



P. SPINULOSA, Henry. Sikkim Spruce. (Syn- 

 onyms : P. morindoides, Rehder ; Abies spinulosa, 

 Griffith.) Eastern Himalayas. — This tree differs 

 from the other fiat-leaved spruces with glabrous 

 branchlets by the radial arrangement of the leaves 

 which are distinctly keeled on both surfaces, and 

 end in a sharp point. The leaves are like those 

 of P. sitchensis, but in that species the leaf 

 arrangement is in two lateral sets like those of 

 the common spruce. This spruce was discovered 

 in Northern Bhutan by Griffith in 1849, ^^^ 

 described by him as a new species of Abies under 

 the name of A . spimilosa ; but Hooker subse- 

 quently confused it with the common P. morinda. 

 Many years afterwards it was found in the 

 arboretum of M. Allard at Angers, France, by 

 M. Rehder, who redescribed it in 1902 as Picea 

 morindoides. It has since been discovered in a 

 number of English and Irish gardens, including 

 Castlewellan, Leonardslee, near Horsham, and 



