86 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Farther north, according to Maximowicz,' it extends throughout the territory of the 

 lower Amur and the coast province facing the Sea of Ochotsk, reaching its northern 

 Hmit in the interior in the Stanovoi mountains about latitude 55 50', and on the coast 

 at Ajan, lat. 56 27'. Schmidt^ says that thick forests of Picea ajanensis occur in 

 the lower Amur and in the coast territory. A mountain at 1000 feet in the 

 Amgun valley was clothed with a thick mossy wood of this spruce, in the shadow 

 of which snow still lay on the 30th May. On the crest of the Bureja range it occurs 

 as a low prostrate shrub. It descends very seldom to the river banks. Middendorfif 

 also notes that it is confined to the hills on the coast of the Sea of Ochotsk. 

 Occasionally it grows on swampy flats in Amurland. 



Schmidt describes the bark as being moderately rough and divided into generally 

 6-angled plates, about an inch in diameter and ^ to 1 line in thickness ; and that 

 the form and colour of the leaves are very variable, their points being either 

 acute or obtuse. 



In the island of Saghalien, in its south-western part, there is a coniferous forest 

 composed of Picea ajanensis and Abies sachalinensis, which clothes the slopes of 

 the mountains up to 800 feet on the coast, and higher in the interior, where even 

 the lofty crests are covered with dark forests of these two species. 



In the Kurile Isles ^ this species is confined to the three islands north of 

 Yezo, namely Kunashiri, Shikotan, and Etorofu, reaching its northern limit in 

 the last named. In Shikotan it forms with Abies sachalinensis a dense mixed forest, 

 which in habit and height and cover of the ground strikingly resembles the coniferous 

 forests at moderate elevations in Germany. The cones borne by the tree in this 

 island are, however, small in size, and the tree itself does not attain its maximum 

 dimensions. 



In Yezo, Mayr reports that he has seen trees 130 feet in height, and considers 

 reliable the reports of the Japanese foresters that it occasionally attains even 

 160-200 feet. It occurs in all the mountains of Yezo, only reaching the coast in 

 the west of the island, where it is found in cold, marshy localities immediately 

 behind the dunes, being only separated from the sea by a growth of Rosa rugosa 

 and shrubby Quercus dentata. The important forests of it lie in the western and 

 central mountains of Yezo, and also in the high ranges of Kitami, Kushiro, and 

 Nemoro, where it forms mixed woods with the Saghalien silver fir and Picea 

 Glehnii. 



Introduction 



We do not know that any plants of the continental Ajan spruce have been 

 grown in Europe. 



John Gould Veitch visited Hakodate in i860, and sent home specimens and seeds 

 of a weakly form of the Yezo Picea ajanensis, which was described by Lindley * as a 



' Maximowicz, Primiticc Flora Amurensis, 261, 392 (1859). See also Kegel, Tenlamen Flora Ussuriensis, 136 (1861). 

 ' Schmidt, " Reisen in Amurland und Saghalien," in Mim. Acad. Imp. Sc. St. Petersburg, VII. series, xii. No. 2, pp. 15, 

 20, 63, 98 (1868). 



' Mayr, loc. cit. p. 102. 



* Card. Chron. 1861, p. 22. This is Picea ajanensis, var. microsperma, Masters, Gard. Chron. 1880, i. 115. 



