ABIES WEP.BIANA. 543 



JOHN GOULD VEITCH (18391870) was born at Exeter. He was at an early age 

 initiated in the working of the nursery business, and took an active part in the 

 management of the Veitchian establishment after its removal to Chelsea in 1853, 

 at that time rapidly acquiring celebrity chiefly through the introduction of new 

 plants, a celebrity he was determined to maintain, and if possible to enhance. He 

 had scarcely attained his majority when an opportunity offered itself by the opening, 

 of the ports of Japan to foreigners, and in April, 1860, he started on a voyage to 

 the Far East, arriving at Nagasaki in July following. He remained in Japan about 

 a year, collecting plants previously unknown in British gardens. Attached to the suite 

 of Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British Envoy to Japan, he was enabled to make 

 the ascent of Fuji yama ; he was therefore one of the tirst Europeans who reached 

 the summit of the " sacred " mountain of the Japanese. After dispatching his 

 collections to Europe he proceeded to the Philippine Islands on a similar mission, 

 but with the especial object of obtaining plants of the beautiful Phalsenopses, natives 

 of the islands, and which were at that period extmnely rare in European gardens ; 

 a mission which proved successful The result of the voyage to Japan was the 

 enrichment of European gardens with many choice coniferous trees, several beautiful 

 evergreen and deciduous shrubs, and herbaceous and other plants ; the first named 

 are sufficiently noticed in the preceding pages ; among the latter especial mention 

 should be made of several beautiful varieties of Acer palmatum, Ampelopsis tricuspidata 

 (syn. A. Veitchii), LiUum auratum, Primula japonica and P. cortusoides. The 

 spirit of enterprise and the desire of making further discoveries induced him again 

 to undertake a long voyage to the East, and in 1864 he set out for Australia and 

 the South Sea Islands, returning to England in February, 1866. Among the most 

 enduring results of the second voyage was the introduction of many richly coloured 

 Crotons and Drac?enas (varieties of Codiseum and Cordyline), the forerunners of 

 the handsome races now so constantly in request for decorative purposes ; 

 also the beautiful Panianus Vei'chii, the elegant Aralia Veitchii and other stove 

 plants of great merit In the early part of 1867 he was taken seriously ill with 

 an affection of the lungs from which, however, under careful treatment he rallied 

 for a time, but in August, 1870, hemorrhage of the lungs set in, from which he died 

 shortly afterwards at the early age of thirty-one. 



Abies Webbiana. 



A large tree 120 150 feet high, the trunk having a girth of 

 9 15 feet near the ground. Bark of old trees dark or brownish 

 grey fissured into long narrow scales by deep grooves often running 

 in spirals around the trunk and anastomosing at right angles. 

 Branches short, spreading nearly horizontally and forming a tall, 

 narrow, cylindric crown.* In Great Britain, at its best development, a 

 stately tree with a rather broadly conical outline, the trunk four or more 

 feet in diameter near the ground, gradually tapering upwards and covered 

 with rugged, irregularly fissured, greyish bark, often with a concavity 

 immediately below the insertion of the primary brandies which arc 

 stout, spreading or slightly ascending. Branchlets distichous and 

 opposite with reddish brown bark, the latest formed hairy (sub-hirsute) 

 and fluted obliquely by cortical outgrowth decurrent from the pulvini 

 of the leaves. Buds ovoid-conic with orange-brown perulse. Leaves 

 persistent seven nine years, spirally arranged around their axes, 

 linear, emarginate ; bidendate at the apex on the fertile branches, 

 1 2 '5 inches long, decurved or straight ; dark lustrous green with a 

 narrow median groove above ; with thickened midrib and margins, 

 and with two silvery stomatiferous bands beneath ; the longer leaves 

 on the under side pseudo-distichous in three four ranks, the shorter 

 ones on the upper side erect or inclined forwards. Staminate flowers 

 globose-cylindric, 075 inch long, surrounded at the base by broadly 



* Brandis, Forest Flora of North-west India, p. 529. 



