Illustrations of Conifers. 33 



PICEA AJANENSIS (Fischer}. 



Gardeners' Chronicle, Vol. XIH p. 115 (1880), with fig. 



XIV. p. 427 (1880) 

 Veitch't Man. Com/, ed. 2, p. 425 (1900). 

 Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. I. p. 85 (1906). 



A TREE which attains a height of 100 to 150 feet in its native localities, 

 the main branches horizontal or ascending, forming a tree of broadly 

 pyramidal outline. Bark of trunk greyish brown, fissuring into ir- 

 regularly quadrangular scales. Branchlets shining, glabrous, yellow 

 at first but becoming reddish-brown or grey in the second year. 



Buds broadly conic, with ovate scales. Leaves persistent seven 

 to nine years ; flattened, thin, blunt, or ending in a short point, 

 slightly keeled on both surfaces ; ventral surface green without 

 stomata; dorsal surface silvery - white with two broad bands of 

 stomata. 



Cones purple when young, brownish when mature, oblong, 2 to 3 

 inches long by about 1 inch in diameter ; scales narrowly oblong-oval, 

 denticulate in margin ; bracts minute, concealed. Seed with a wing 

 two or three times its length. 



There are forests of this tree in Yezo where it attains its 

 greatest development. It spreads northwards through Saghalien and 

 the Kurile Islands, and occurs on the Continent through the coast 

 district of Amurland to Ajan on the sea of Okhotsk. In Hondo, the 

 main island of Japan, there occurs a form which Dr. Mayr has 

 separated as a distinct species under the name of Picea hondoensis, 

 but its characters do not appear to be at all well marked. Picea 

 ajanensis was introduced into cultivation in 1861 by John Gould 

 Veitch ; and owing to a mixing of seeds was subsequently distri- 

 buted under the name of Abies Alcockiana. According to Mayr 

 all the older trees cultivated in Great Britain under the name of 

 Picea ajanensis belong to P. hondoensis, and he asserts that the 

 true Yezo spruce was not introduced into European cultivation 

 until 1891. 



The Bayfordbury specimen planted in 1879 is now 14 feet 

 high. The cones photographed were grown at High Leigh, Hoddesdon. 



