yS The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



PICEA OMORIKA, Servian Spruce 



PUea Omorika, Bolle, Monatschrift des Vereines zur Beforderung des Gartenbaues, 124 (1877); 

 Masters, Gard. Chron. 1884, xxi. 308, 309, Figs. 56, 57, 58, and 1897, xxi. 153, Fig. 44; Jour. 

 Linn. Soc. {Bot.) xxii. 203 (1886); Willkomni, Forstliche Flora, 99 (1897); Kent, in VeitcKs 

 Man. Coniferce, 442 (1900); Richardson, Edin. Bot. Garden, Notes, No. i (1900); G. von 

 Beck, Die Vegetationsverhdltnisse der Illyrischen Ldnder, 286, 360, 440, 474 (1901). 



Pinus Omorika, Pancic, Eine Neue Conifere in den Ocstlichen Alpen, 4 (Belgrade, 1876); Masters, 

 Gard. Chron. 1877, vii. 470, 620. 



A tree with a tall, slender stem, said to attain 1 30 feet in height, with a girth of 

 stem of only 4 feet, with short branches, forming a narrow pyramidal crown. The 

 topmost branches are directed upwards, the middle ones are horizontally spreading, 

 and the lower ones are pendulous, with their tips arching upwards. Bark brownish 

 red, and scaling off in plates, the fragments often being heaped in quantity round the 

 base of the tree. The leaves on vertical shoots stand out on all sides, but on 

 horizontal shoots they point forwards on the upper side, being pseudo-distichous in 

 three or four ranks on the lower side. They are flattened, 4-angled, straight, or 

 curved to one side, f-i inch long, linear, acute or obtuse with an apiculus, convex, 

 and shining green on the ventral surface, marked with stomatic lines on each side 

 of the prominent midrib of the dorsal surface.^ They persist for 4 or 5 years. 



The buds, ovoid-conic with brown, membranous scales, the outermost of which 

 end in long subulate points, are produced chiefly near the end of the shoot ; and in 

 unfolding, the uppermost scales are pushed off as a cap. The dark brown hairs, 

 which are conspicuous on the young shoots, persist on the older branchlets of even 

 3 or 4 years' growth in wild specimens. 



The male flowers, which are partly solitary and partly whorled, are stalked, ovoid- 

 cylindric, bright red, \-\ inch long, and are surrounded at the base by numerous 

 membranous bracts. 



Cones, shortly - stalked 2-2^ inches long, bluish black when young, dark- 

 brown when ripe, clustered, the upper ones being directed upwards, while the 

 middle ones are horizontal, and the lower ones pendulous. Scales almost orbicular 

 in outline, broad and convex, streaked on the outer surface, with the margin 

 slightly bent inwards, undulate and denticulate. Bract obovate-cuneate, minute. 

 Seeds small, -}j^-\ inch long, obovate, blackish brown, with a wing \ inch long, obovate 

 in outline. 



On horizontal shoots, the leaves, by twisting movements on their bases, are inverted, so that the green surface is turned 

 upwards and the stomatic surface downwards. 



