EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS. 547 



great trees of California and Oregon, where, in rich valleys, it 

 grows to a height of one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, 

 with a trunk from five to ten feet in diameter. In appearance it 

 strongly resembles our common balsam fir, but all its parts are on 

 a larger scale. Downing mentions a specimen seen at Dropmore, 

 England, which had been planted twenty-one years, and which was 

 then sixty-two feet high ; of which he wrote : " It resembles most 

 the Norway spruce as one occasionally sees the finest form of that 

 tree, having that graceful, downward sweep of the branches, and 

 feathering out quite down to the turf; but it is altogether more airy 

 in form, and of a richer and darker green color. At this size it is 

 the symbol of stately elegance." Doubtless the Dropmore speci- 

 men was an uncommonly beautiful one. A portrait of this fir, 

 grown to full size, given in the Pacific R. R. Survey, has much of 

 the formal, sombre air, of our old balsam firs. Hoopes (West- 

 chester, Pa.), considers this much hardier than the Himalayan 

 spruce, and less liable to be scorched by the summer sun; but does 

 not think it quite hardy. Sargent (at Fishkill, on the Hudson) 

 says : " Plants with us, in low damp ground, suffer occasionally in 

 color if not in loss of leaves ; while those grown in the shade, or 

 on an exposed hill-side in poor, slaty soil, succeed admirably." 



The Yew-leaved Douglass Spruce Fir. Abies D. taxifolia. — 

 This is a variety with much longer leaves, and lesser growth, dis- 

 tinguished also by the very level stratification of its branches. 

 Probably not hardier than the above. 



Patton's Giant California Fir. Abies Pattonii. — A native 

 of California and Oregon, discovered b}'^ Lewis and Clarke, of 

 which specimens are known growing to the height of three hundred 

 feet, and trunks forty-two feet in circumference ! Scarcely known 

 yet in our collections, though reported hardy in England. 



The Hemlock Fir. Abies canadensis. — This common native 

 tree is certainly the most graceful, beautiful, and available of all 

 evergreens for the embellishment of small places. Hardy as an 

 oak, delicate and airy in outline as the grasses of a winter bouquet, 

 soft to the touch, fragrant, yet forming deep masses of verdure 



