560 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Varieties 



In the wild state there is considerable variation in the size and shape of the 

 leaves, dependent upon conditions of soil, shade, and climate. Fliche ' describes two 

 distinct forms in France. In the hot and dry region of the Esterel, the leaves are 

 small in size, not exceeding 2^ inches in length by f inch in breadth, and are very 

 coriaceous, spathulate, with feebly serrated and revolute margins. In the forest of 

 La Pinouse, near Quillan in Aude, which is mainly composed of Pinus sylvestris with 

 a slight mixture of beech and silver fir, the climate being cool and the altitude con- 

 siderable, the Arbutus has very large leaves, often 5 inches long by 2 inches broad, 

 which are lanceolate with sharply serrate and non-revolute margins. 



The following varieties are often cultivated : 



1. Var. rubra, Aiton, Hort. Kew, ii. 71 (1789). (Var. Croomei,' Hort.). Flowers 



pink or reddish. Mackay ^ noticed a single plant of this variety, growing on 

 red slate near Glengariff. 



2. Var. integerrima, Sims, Bot. Mag. t. 2319 (1822) (vars. integrifolia and 



rotundifolia, Hort.). Leaves entire and smaller than in the type. This is 

 said to have been raised by Loddiges from seed of the ordinary form. The 

 leaves vary in shape, often being obovate'or almost orbicular. 



3. Var. qtiercifolia, Hort. Leaves obovate-lanceolate, with a few irregular teeth in 



the upper half, about 2 inches long by f inch broad. In cultivation at Kew. 



4. Var. turbinata, Persoon. This variety occurs wild in Greece, and is remarkable 



for its large top-shaped fruit, more than an inch in length. 



5. Other varieties have been noted, which I have not seen, as salicifolia with narrow 



leaves, crispa with crumpled leaves, ^adi plena, with semi-double flowers. 



Distribution 



This species is widely spread throughout the maritime regions of the countries 

 bordering on the Mediterranean, occurring in Spain, France, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, 

 Istria, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Algeria, and Morocco. It is 

 also met with in the maritime belt along the Atlantic from Portugal to Kerry in 

 Ireland. It occurs either as undergrowth in the forests, where in favoured situations 

 it reaches the dimensions of a small tree, or is one of the shrubs composing the 

 maquis or heaths, which spread over large tracts of siliceous soil that have been 

 denuded of trees in past ages. It is apparently only in Ireland that the Arbutus 

 grows to be a forest tree, moderate in size, but equalling in height and girth the trees 

 of other species, with which it is associated. 



In France, the Arbutus is common in the departments whose shores are bathed 

 by the Mediterranean and extends inland as far as Drome and Lozere ; it is not un- 

 frequent along the west coast from Bayonne to La Rochelle, and is recorded* from 



> Bull. Soc. ties Sciences, 1886, p. 26. 2 Figured in Garden, xxxiii. 320 (l888). ' Fl. Hibemica, 182 (1836). 



Arbutus is very abundant, in company with oak and mountain ash, in a wood, about l\ mile in length, on the abrupt 

 and rocky slope of the cliff of Trieux, near Paimpol, in C6tes-du-Nord. Cf. Dr. Avice, in Bull. Soc. Bol. Fratue, xliii. 123 

 (1896), and Coste, Flore de la France, ii. 506 (1903). In a note on the occurrence of this species in the Landes, in Bull. 

 Soc. Bot. France, xlix. p. Ivii. (1902), it is stated that wherever the Arbutus grows, in that region, holly is absent, the two 

 species seeming to exclude each other. 



