139 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



and scarious and usually reflexed ; terminal buds girt with a ring of keeled acuminate 

 scales. Leaves on lateral branches in an imperfect radial arrangement, more crowded 

 on the upper than on the lower side of the branchlet, all spreading forwards as well 

 as outwards ; f to i J in. long, stout, rigid, incurved, tapering towards the hard 

 sharp-pointed apex ; varying greatly in colour on different trees, bright green, 

 bluish or silvery white ; quadrangular in section, with four to seven stomatic lines on 

 each side. 



Cones sessile, usually persistent till the second winter, about 2 to 4 in. long, 

 1 to i in. in diameter, cylindrical but slightly narrowed at both ends ; green tinged 

 with red when growing, pale shining brown when mature : scales numerous, like 

 those of P. Engelmanni, thin, tough and flexible, rhomboidal, narrowing towards the 

 truncate denticulate apex, longer than broad, about \ in. wide : bract about \ in. 

 long, with a denticulate ovate lamina. Seed blackish, \ in. long ; seed with wing 

 in. long ; wing broadest near the truncate lacerate apex. 



This species is readily distinguished by its radially arranged, rigid, sharp- 

 pointed leaves, by its glabrous branchlets, and by the loose reflexed tips of the 

 bud-scales. 



Varieties 



Seedlings differ very much in the colour of the foliage, which varies from almost 

 a pure green to a silvery white. Trees with very blue glaucous foliage are dis- 

 tinguished as var. glauca, Regel, 1 and are much more ornamental than the green form, 

 var. viridis, Regel, 1 which is less common in cultivation. Var. argentea, Waterer, 2 is 

 a form with silvery foliage, which has longer and more slender needles than usual ; 

 and on this account it is often erroneously known in gardens as Picea Engelmanni 

 glauca? from which species it is readily distinguished by its glabrous branchlets and 

 peculiar buds with reflexed scales. 



Var. Kosteriana* (var. glauca pendula 5 ). This is a form with very pendulous 

 branches and fine bluish foliage, which originated in Messrs. Koster's nursery at 

 Boskoop in Holland. 



Another variety, said to be vigorous in growth, and characterised by shining 

 leaves, silvery white in colour and broader and longer than in the type, originated in 

 the nursery of Herr Weise at Kamenz in Saxony, who sent it out as var. Konig 

 Albert von Sacksen. 6 



Beissner describes two prostrate forms, var. prostrata 1 and var. tabuliformis? 

 According to Rehder, 9 a dwarf compact form originated about 1 890 in the Arnold 

 Arboretum, U.S.A. 



1 Russ. Dendr. i. 37 (1883). 2 Ex Masters, vajourn. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 223 (1892). 



3 This is Abies Engelmanni glauca, Veitch, Man. Conif. 69 (1881). Cf. Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 432 (1900}. 



1 Masters, in Kew Hand-List Conif. 85 (1903). 



' Beissner, Nadelholzkun<ie, 348 (1901). Bean, in Kav. Bull, 1908, p. 390, calls it var. Kosteri pendula. 



8 Ledien, in Gartenflora, xl. 69, fig. 22 (1891). ' Mitt. Deut. Vend. Ges. 1906, p. 141. 



8 Ibid. 1909, p. 268. In Bailey, Cycl. Am. Hort. 1334 (1901). 



