PICEA AJANENSIS. 425 



Picea ajanensis. 



A lofty tree attaining a height of 120 feet, occasionally upwards of 

 150 feet, the trunk covered with greyish brown bark fissured into 

 small scale-like plates, and except when standing alone, free of branches 

 for more than half the height. In Great Britain, a much-branched 

 tree of broadly pyramidal outline, with the primary branches more or 

 less ascending but sometimes horizontal. Branchlets distichous and 

 opposite, with many short adventitious shoots on the upper side of 

 the axial growth, the bark whitish or pale orange, with projecting 

 rounded ridges running obliquely from the pulvini of the leaves. 

 Buds small, broadly and obtusely conic, with ovate reddish brown 

 perulse. Leaves persistent seven nine years, spirally crowded, 

 flattened, mucronate or obtuse, 0'5 0*75 inch long, the shorter ones 

 on the upper side appressed and imbricated ; the longer ones on the 

 under side, pseudo-distichous or spreading ; with a silvery white 

 stomatiferous band on each side of the thickened midrib on the 

 ventral side, bright green with a raised' median line on the dorsal 

 side. Staminate flowers solitary or in clusters of two five near the 

 distal end of lateral branchlets of the preceding year, cylindric-conic, 

 0'5 0*75 inch long, pale yellow. Ovuliferous flowers cylindric, erect, 

 about an inch long, carmine-crimson before fertilisation. Cones 

 cylindric, 1 2 inches long and 0'75 1 inch in diameter ; scales 

 oval-oblong, undulated, erose on the free edge. Seed-wings obovate- 

 . oblong, more than half as long as the scales. 



Picea ajanensis, Fisher, Fl. Ochot in Middendorf. Reise, 87, tt. 2224 (1856). 

 Maximowicz, Prim. Fl. Amur. 1859. Masters in Gard. Chron. XIII. (1880), p. 115 

 XIV. p. 427, with tigs.; Journ. Linn. Soc. XVIII. 508, Avith tigs.; and Journ. R. 

 Hort. Soc. XIV. 220. Hooker til. Bot. Mag. t. 6743. 



P. microsperma, Carriere, Traite' Conif. ed. II. 339 (1867). 



P jezoensis, Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 345 (in part). 



P. Hondoensis, Mayr, Abiet. Jap. Reiches, 51, Tafel IV. fig. 9 (1890). 



Abies ajanensis, Kent in Veitch's Manual, ed. I. 66 (1881). 



A. microsperma, Lindley in Gard. Chron. (1861), p. 22. Murray, Pines and 

 Firs of Japan, p. 69. 



A. jezoensis, Siebold and Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. II. 19, t. 110 (1842), in part. 

 Murray, Pines and Firs of Japan, 72, with figs. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 11 (Jessoensis). 



Pinus Menziesii, Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 418 (in part). 



Eng. Yesso Fir. Germ. Ajau Fichte. Jap. Eso-matsu, Kuro-matsu. 



Picea ajanensis is a northern tree attaining its greatest develop- 

 ment in the Japanese Island of Yeso, where it is abundant, 

 forming pure forests in the cold, swampy plains near the west 

 coast, and much mixed with Abies saclmlinense and Picea G-lelmii on 

 the central mountains. Northwards it spreads through Saghalien to 

 the Kurile Islands, and on the Continent through the coast district 

 of Amurland ; southwards it occurs wild only on the centra, 

 mountains of Hondo as far as the 35th parallel of north latitude.* 



* Dr. Mayr considers the Hondo form of Picea ajanensis to be specifically distinct from 

 the Yeso type, and has described and figured it as such under the name of P. Hondoensis, 

 Abietineen des Japanischen Reiches, loc. cit. supra.; but neither the description nor the 

 figures appear to justify the separation. The specific name, microsperma, was given by 

 Lindley to a Spruce Fir brought from Hakodate by the late John Gould Veitch, whic 

 proved to be a weakly plant unsuitable for the climate of this country. 



