208 VARIETIES OF CUPKESSUS LAW.SONIANA. 



var. argentea (syn. ( 



Branches shorter and more slender, sometimes sub-pendulous. Branch- 

 lets and foliage very glaucous, almost of silvery whiteness, sometimes 

 with a steel-hlue reflection. 



var. aureo-variegata (syn. aurea spica), 



Many of the youngest branchlets bright yellow. Of conical or 

 pyramidal habit. 



var. darleyensis . 



The current year's growths bright golden yellow : the coloured shoots 

 more numerous than in the variety aureo-variegata, and of a darker 

 shade than in the variety lutea. Of broadly conical or pyramidal 

 habit. 



var. lutea. 



The whole of the young growths light yellow which subsides to 

 golden yellow in winter and to the normal green of the species in the 

 succeeding season. Of medium growth and sub-fastigiate habit. Silver 

 Queen is a cream-white variation of this. 



var. -versicolor. 



A parti-coloured form in which many of the leaves near the base 

 of the lateral growths are cream-white, and those at the apical end 

 sulphur-yellow on the under side and light green on the upper side. 



var. West ermanii. 



Foliage light yellow changing to fulvous green in winter. < )f broadly 

 pyramidal habit with drooping branchlets. 



Cupressus Laivsoniana is supposed to have been discovered by 

 Jeffrey on the southern flanks of Mount Shasta while collecting for the 

 Scottish Oregon Association in 1851 1852, but nothing certain was 

 known of it till seeds were sent by William Murray in 1854 to the 

 nursery of Messrs. Lawson at Edinburgh. It lias a comparatively 

 limited range in South Oregon and North California ; it is abundant 

 on the Oregon coast in the vicinity of Port Orford associated with 

 Tlmia gigantea, Picea sitckensis, Abies grandis and Abietia Douglasii where 

 " it forms one of the most prolific and beautiful coniferous forests 

 of the continent, unsurpassed in the variety and luxuriance of its 

 undergrowth of Rhododendrons, Vaccininms, Raspberries, Buckthorns 

 and Ferns. It attains its largest size on the western slopes of the 

 coast-range foot-hills between Port Gregory and the Coqtiille river, 

 where it is the principal tree in a nearly continuous forest-belt 

 about twenty miles in length and twelve in width."* 



The aspect of Cupre##U8 Laicsoniana in its old age in its native forests 

 is very different from the tall piles of verdant foliage with which it is 

 clothed in this country ; its tall trunk is without branches for two-thirds 



* Silva of North America, Vol. X. p. 120. 



