EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS. 525 



light almost like a kaleidoscope. The leaves resemble the silk of 

 maize, being as soft and delicate and not unlike it in color." Al- 

 though it grows on the mountains of Mexico at the height of eight 

 thousand to nine thousand five hundred feet above the level of the 

 sea, Mr. Sargent dares not trust his beautiful specimen in open 

 ground in winter, and is satisfied that it is not suited to bear our 

 winters, deeming it " quite beautiful enough for pot-culture to sat- 

 isfy anybody." 



PINCE'S MEXICAN WILLOW PINE. P. pinceana. This is another 

 of the Mexican mountain pines, found on the same elevations as 

 the preceding, on a road leading to the City of Mexico. It is de- 

 scribed as " a very handsome tree, with long weeping branches like 

 those of the weeping willow, and easily distinguished from all other 

 Mexican pines on that account." (Gordon.) There is no proba- 

 bility of its proving hardy in this country, but it may be grown in 

 boxes by those having conservatories to winter it in, and serve to 

 give variety to a pinetum in the open air in summer. It grows to 

 sixty feet in height in its native places. 



THE CHILI PINE. Araucaria imbricata. This is not a true 

 pine, but is classed with them because the name by which it is 

 widely known implies that it is a pine. One of the most curious 

 of all trees ; the branches growing like tortuous canes, covered 

 with large pointed green scales for leaves. The color of the foliage 

 is the purest of deep greens. If it could be grown successfully in 

 open ground we know of no evergreen that, as a curiosity, would 

 be more desirable. Of the thousands of trees planted about twenty 

 years ago, and since, very few are living ; but we do not yet aban- 

 don the hope of seeing it acclimatized in the middle States. A 

 few careful cultivators have succeeded in growing it. There 

 are good trees in Baltimore and Washington, but it has failed at 

 Newport, Flushing, and Cincinnati. If seed could be procured 

 from the most southerly limit of its growth in Patagonia, and from 

 the most exposed specimens, it could, perhaps, be made to sport 

 into hardy varieties in this country. The seeds have been obtained 

 principally from near Concepcion, in latitude 37, near the sea. 



