THE SILVER FIR. 123 



The Khutrow or Morinda (A. Smithiand). This 

 tree possesses great beauty when in a condition of 

 health, and has often been admired as a handsome 

 plant, but it generally becomes diseased as it advances 

 in age, and approaches the size of a timber tree. 



Another tree also which has been introduced from 

 the Himalayas, A. bruoniana, with pendent branches 

 and silvery foliage, is a very ornamental plant, bearing 

 a strong likeness to the hemlock spruce, but its growth 

 is too feeble to cause it to be of any value as a timber 

 tree. 



Taking the whole range of spruce trees into con- 

 sideration, there is none so worthy of being grown, 

 under ordinary conditions and circumstances, as the 

 Norway spruce. 



The Silver Fir. This is the Abies, or spruce fir 

 of the ancients, but of the genus Picea of Linnaeus. 

 It bears a striking resemblance to the spruce fir, but 

 the leaves are less numerous, and lie flatter on each 

 side of the small branches, and thus, as it were, form 

 two ranks, and the cones stand erect on the branches, 

 in contradistinction to those of the spruce fir, which 

 are pendent. 



It is one of the most ornamental trees of the 

 Coniferous order, and embraces several species, natives 

 of Europe, Asia, and America, some of which have 

 only been recently introduced into Britain. 



Common Silver Fir (Picea pectinatd). This tree is 

 indigenous to Central Europe, being found in France, 

 Germany, Spain, and Italy, on the slopes of mountains 

 and in glens, as well as being found in the north of 

 Africa. On the Alps and the Carpathian range it 

 is sometimes found at an elevation between 3,000 and 



