CHAPTER X. 



VARIABILITY OF CONIFEROUS TREES. 



Few facts in connection with coniferous trees have impressed 

 me more than their extreme variability, whether when grow- 

 ing under the same or different conditions as to soil, aspect, 

 or situation. I have repeatedly known foresters, and other 

 persons who were deeply interested in coniferous trees, quite 

 at a loss to casually recognise on one estate species with 

 which they were perfectly familiar in other parts of the 

 country ; and very often it has happened that specimens 

 sent for the purpose of recognition have, owing to a variety 

 of causes, been wrongly named by our greatest authorities on 

 conifer nomenclature. In the latter case I refer directly to 

 foliage, the fruit forming an unerring guide to identity. 



The common Scotch pine {Finns silvestris) varies to a wide 

 extent in general aspect, foliage, and size and shape of cones ; 

 and the same may be said, though in a greatly increased 

 manner, of the Corsican pine (P. Laricid) and its numerous 

 forms. Until quite recently, E. Laricio austriaca was ranked 

 as a distinct species, but along the margins of a single planta- 

 tion at Penrhyn Castle, North Wales, every link between the 

 typical P. Laricio and the so-called P, austriaca can be seen. 

 How greatly different trees of P. Strobus vary in length of foliage 

 and size of cone, a remark that applies with still greater force 

 to the Mexican P. Montezumce. P. Massoniana^ ^.ndP.parviJlora 

 are other examples of extreme variability, both in aspect and 

 colour of foliage, and specimens of these, growing near the 

 shores of Lough Neagh, in Ireland, are as widely different 



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