xiii 



" Keteleeria of Carriere, referred by Bentham to Abies, 

 is also shown by the fuller knowledge we now have of 

 its structure to constitute a distinct genus." 



The collections of Coniferae at Kew have occupied 

 three different positions at successive times. According 

 to John Smith's privately printed Records of Kew (p. 258), 

 the original Arboretum consisted of about five acres. 

 It lay between the Temple of the Sun and the present 

 Main Entrance. It was laid out by W. Aiton on the 

 Linnean system. " Pinus occupied the north and part of 

 the east." 



In the first edition of the Hortus Kewensis (1789) 

 Aiton enumerates 36 species of Coniferae as cultivated 

 at Kew ; in the second edition (1813) 56 species are 

 recorded, "which formed the collection in the original 

 Arboretum." Some of these still remain. According to 

 Smith (p. 286), " within a few yards of the entrance 

 gates on Kew Green stands a specimen of P. Laricio (the 

 Corsican Pine). In 1825 the late R. A. Salisbury informed 

 me that he brought it from the south of France, in the 

 year 1814 ; it is now (1880) 85 feet high, and the most 

 conspicuous tree in the Gardens." 



Grinkgo biloba (Salisburia adiantifolia), first introduced 

 in 1754, was, according to Smith (p. 267), "originally 

 trained against a wall like a fruit tree ; upon the wall 

 being taken down, and the branches cut away, it is now 

 (1880) a fine tree. When against the wall one of its side 

 branches early produced male flowers." It again did so 

 in 1895, and probably in previous years. 



Cedrus Deodara was, according to Smith (p. 287), 

 introduced "by the Hon. Leslie Melville, in the year 



