EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS. 553 



THE PYRAMIDAL SILVER FIR. P. p. pyramidata. Another 

 German variety, a little less fastigiate than the preceding, with a 

 pendulous tendency in the smaller shoots. 



THE TORTUOUS SILVER FIR. P. p. tortuosa.K German 

 variety, with crooked and tortugus branches and branchlets. 



THE OBLATE DWARF SILVER FIR. P. 

 /. compacta. (P. p. nana?) This is a 

 charming, very low dwarf variety ; so broad 

 and low, that we have ventured to add to 

 its title the word oblate to make the name 

 more characteristic of the form, which is in 

 breadth nearly double its height. The color 

 is a very warm, almost golden, green. Height from two to three 

 feet. 



THE CILICIAN SILVER FIR. Picea cilidca (P. leiodada). This 

 is a very distinct, and very beautiful species, from the mountains of 

 Asia Minor. Gordon describes it as " a handsome tree of a pyra- 

 midal shape, thickly furnished with vertical branches to the ground, 

 and growing fifty feet high, and three feet in diameter." The 

 branches are thickly set on the stems, and the branchlets are much 

 more irregular and intermingled than those of the common silver 

 fir. A fine specimen, growing in the grounds of Parsons & Co. at 

 Flushing, L. I., has a form and expression such as one might 

 imagine from a cross between the sturdy Cephalonian fir and the 

 graceful Himalayan spruce. It seems to us that it will make a tree 

 of more graceful outline and varied shadows than the old silver fir ; 

 but its mature character, as an ornamental tree, and its hardiness, 

 cannot yet be determined. 



THE CEPHALONIAN FIR. Picea Cephalonica. This hardy and 

 sturdy-looking evergreen takes a somewhat similar rank among the 

 Piceas that our native black spruce does among the Abies. Its 

 leaves stand at right angles and rigidly all around the branches, 

 instead of being disposed in lines on the sides of the twigs only ; 

 and the branches, though numerous, and in tiers, on the main 

 stem, have branchlets in every direction, instead of being in level 



