6 SUPPLEMENT TO THE PINETUM. 



It is called " Kara-Schersae" by the Tartars, on account of 

 its warted branches, and close appearance, and is a very diffe- 

 rent kind from the Abies Orientalis, which so frequently is sub- 

 stituted for it in the nurseries. It more resembles the common 

 Spruce, but with very much smaller egg-shaped cones, which 

 are quite obtuse at the ends^ and seldom more than two and a 

 half inches long, by one and a quarter wide. 



Page 10. 

 Abies Pattoni, Jeffrey, the Great Californian Spruce. 

 Syn. Abies Williamsonii, Newberry, not Bridges. 



This fir grows under favourable circumstances to an immense 

 size in the Oregon country, where not unfrequently trees are 

 seen from 30 to 40 feet in circumference, four feet from the 

 ground, and towering upwards some 250 feet, or more, with 

 100 feet of the trunk entirely free from branches. The timber 

 is excellent, splits freely, and quite straight in the grain. 



Dr. Newberry, in his Keport on the Exploratory Expedition 

 and Surveys from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, de- 

 scribes this Fir under the name of Abies Williamsonii; and 

 more recently, Mr. Bridges, a collector in California, has been 

 disposing of seeds of a very different kind under the same name ; 

 Dr. Newberry^s sort being identical with Abies Pattoni (the 

 Giant Fir of California), while that sold by Bridges under the 

 name of Abies "Williamsonii is the same as Abies Mertensiana 

 (the Hemlock Spruce of California). 



The Abies Pattoni occupies the most elevated parts of the 

 Sierra Nevada, and seldom descends lower down than 100 

 yards from the line of perpetual snow, where in moist situations 

 it forms a tree from 100 to 130 feet high, with a trunk some- 

 times 3 feet in diameter. Its branches spread out horizontally 

 from the main stem, but become drooping towards the extremi- 

 ties, and with the branchlets thickly set round with solitary 

 leaves about two-thirds of an inch long, grass green above, and 

 pale green beneath, with those towards the points of the branch- 

 lets spreading, and silvery white below. The cones are about 

 two inches long, and one in diameter, in the widest part ; when 



