THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



289 



naiTOW, compact pyramid fifteen feet high, and clothed 

 with foliage to the ground. P. densiflora, easily distin- 

 guished by the white terminal buds, is eighteen feet high, 

 wide-branched and covered with cones. As an ornamental 

 tree it is no better than the Austrian pine, and is inferior to 

 our native red-pine, P. resinosa, our northern pitch- 

 pine (P. rigida), which we looked for in vain. They 

 appear to have succumbed, as have the following American 

 species : P. palustris, P. Sabiniana, P. flexilis, P. pungens, P. 

 iyiops and P. Taeda, while P. koraiensis, of Corea, and P. 

 Bungeana, of northern China, have grown into remarkable 

 specimens. 



" Several firs have grown into handsome trees, although 

 it should be remembered that a fir twenty years old is at 

 its best as an ornamental tree, and that with greater age it 

 too often grows thin in the lower branches and loses much 

 of the perfection of form which makes some young firs 

 beautiful objects. To the lover of rare trees the most inter- 

 esting fir in the collection is a plant of Abies amabilis, of 

 the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington. This 

 plant has evidently had a hard time in getting a start, but 

 now looks strong and vigorous, and is about six feet high. 

 Two or three handsome specimens of the white-fir of 

 the Sierras, the Abies concolor of botanists, and in gardens 

 variously called A. Lowiana, A. lasiocarpa, and A. Parsonsiana , 

 bear witness to the beauty and hardiness of this noble tree, 

 which is the only Pacific Coast fir which is really satis- 

 factory in the eastern states. A. Nordmanniana, which has 

 grown taller than any other fir in the collection, appears to 

 be suffering from an overproduction of cones, and, more- 

 over, is getting thin near the ground, showing that in our 



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