Picea 1393 



It was discovered by Griffith, who found it growing on the slopes of the 

 Rodoola Pass and in the Tung-chiew valley in northern Bhutan (about qi long, and 

 almost 150 miles east of the Sikkim frontier). He described it as a tree usually 

 of moderate size, but occasionally attaining 80 ft. in height, and growing in groups 

 between 8500 and 10,000 ft. elevation. It resembled at a distance a larch in habit, 

 with the lower branches deflexed and the upper branches spreading. He named 

 it Abies spinulosa, and there is no doubt possible as to its identity. He refers to 

 the pulvini from which the leaves arise, showing that it was a spruce and not a silver 

 fir. His statement 1 that " the lower surface of the leaf is glaucous, but that 

 probably this was the true upper surface turned downwards " is characteristic of 

 the section Omorica, to which P. spinulosa belongs. 



Sir Joseph Hooker found this spruce again in 1849 in the Lachen valley, at 

 9000 ft. altitude, in Sikkim ; and Elwes saw it in the same place on 1st October 1870; 

 but neither Hooker nor Elwes noticed it elsewhere in Sikkim. Hooker identified it 

 with Griffith's Abies spinulosa ; but, unfortunately, afterwards combined it with Picea 

 Smithiana. 2 



It was again found at 9000 to 10,000 ft. altitude, in 1887, in the drier climate 

 of the Chumbi valley (on the north-eastern frontier of Sikkim) by a native in the 

 employment of the late Sir J. Ware Edgar, then Deputy Commissioner of Dar- 

 jeeling. It has lately been rediscovered in this locality by Mr. E. H. C. Walsh, 

 who accompanied the military expedition to Lhasa. There are also specimens in 

 the Kew Herbarium collected at Yatung (27 51' N. lat., 88 35' E. long.) by Mr. 

 H. E. Hobson. 



Sir George King, who considered the Chumbi valley specimens to be a new 

 species, which, however, he left undescribed, sent seeds in 1877 or 1878 to various 

 botanical establishments in Europe ; and a tree probably raised from this seed is now 

 growing in the arboretum of M. Allard, at Angers in France. It was found here 

 by Mr. Rehder, who described it as a new species of unknown origin, under the 

 name P. morindoides. It bore cones which I gathered in 1906, and was then 

 about 20 ft. high. M. Allard obtained it about 1891 from Van Houtte. 



(A. H.) 



Though I saw this tree in the Lachen valley of Sikkim during my first 

 journey to the Tibetan frontier in 1870, I did not take special notice of it 

 at the time, and certainly saw no such wonderful trees as are described by 

 Mr. J. Claude White in his recently published book. 8 These grow in the Sebu 

 valley, a tributary of the Lachung, and must be among the tallest trees in India. 

 Mr. White says: "One fallen giant, a spruce that I measured, was 220 ft. from 

 the roots to where it had broken off short, and there it measured 6 ft. in girth. 

 What had become of the top I do not know, but it was a magnificent specimen." 



1 Griffith's MS. description at Kew, which is mutilated in the printed Itin. Notes, reads : " Ramulis fere omnibus 

 deflexis, verrucis e quibus folia oriuntur exasperatis ; folia undique patentia, linearea, mucrone spinulosa terminale, pungentia ; 

 pagina inferior glauca, superior an resupinata. Conis terminalibus, pendentibus, oblongis, fere cylindraceis, castaneo brunneis ; 

 squamis latiformis, obtusissimis, laevibus." 



2 Flora Brit. India, v. 653 (1888) under P. Morinda. Hooker gives on a drawing at Kew the height of the tree as 

 80 ft., and the locality, Lachen, 8000 to 10,000 ft. altitude. 3 Sikkim and Bhutan, 79 (1909). 



