480 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



The Earl of Ducie informs me that in 1854, and for several years afterwards, 

 he planted many deodars at Tortworth, both on the old red sandstone and on the 

 mountain limestone. Many of these have perished after thirty to forty years' 

 growth, without any apparent reason, except that in one case where only six out of 

 about ninety remain, it is probable that they were infected with disease by the dead 

 roots of beech trees which previously occupied the ground. Very few deodars at 

 this place seem likely to attain a great age, and contrast unfavourably with the Cedar 

 of Lebanon. But at Miserden Park, in the same county, on a dry oolite limestone, 

 at an elevation of at least 600 feet, a line of deodars about sixty years old have 

 remained healthy, though their growth here is much slower than at Tortworth. 



At Poltimore, near Exeter, there is a fine avenue of deodars which were planted 

 in 1851-52, and have grown to an average height of 70 to 80 feet in 1906, most of 

 them being extremely vigorous, but there are several blanks in this avenue. 



The cause of these deaths is explained by Mr. R. L, Anderson in a note 

 published in the Qtmrterly Journal of Forestry, i. 216, who states that the fungus 

 now known as Armillaria mellea, Vahl., was present on the roots of one of 

 these deodars ; and as the best means of checking its spread to other healthy 

 trees, recommends trenching the ground round the affected tree, digging up 

 and burning its roots, and scattering gas lime over the ground where they have 

 been. 



At Castle Menzies, in Perthshire, of a number of deodars, which were planted 

 by the late Sir R. Menzies about 1852 to commemorate the birth of his son, on soil 

 which was too wet to suit them, though Tsuga albertiana and Picea sitchensis have 

 succeeded very well close by, several are dead, and all are more or less stunted, 

 though one of these trees measuring "j^ feet in girth was successfully transplanted in 

 February 1907, and had not lost a leaf when I saw it in the following July. 



I have not myself gathered any ripe seed of the deodar in England, but there 

 is a tree growing in Kew Gardens between the main gate and the Director's ofifice 

 which measures 37 feet by 4 feet 8 inches, and was raised from seed produced in 

 1 86 1 or 1862 by a tree at Killerton, and sent by the late Sir Thomas Acland to 

 Kew in February 1868. Mr. Smith, the then Curator of Kew, was so much 

 impressed by the good quality of the soil from the top of Killerton Hill in which 

 this tree was raised, that two truck loads of it were sent to Kew. 



The earliest record * of the deodar producing fruit in England is of a tree at 

 Bury Hill, near Dorking, which produced cones in 1852, when it was 28 feet high. 

 Cones have also been borne on trees at Dropmore,^ Sunninghill,^ Bishopsteignton * 

 near Teignmouth, Enys^ in Cornwall, and Fota^ in Ireland, Seedlings have been 

 raised from home-grown seed at Rozel Bay^ in Jersey and at Bicton.^ 



A deodar in Kew Gardens produced cones in 1887, according to a note in 

 Gardeners Chronicle, ii. 248 (1887), where it is stated that the production of cones 

 on this species in this country has hitherto been a rare occurrence. At The Coppice, 

 Henley, the seat of Sir Walter Phillimore, Bart, and at Shiplake House, the 



> Gard. Chrm. 1852, p. 582, and x, 279 (1891). 

 Ibid. X. 423, 435, 436, 492, 679 (1891). ' Ibid, 1869, p. 1279. 



