Retrospective Criticism. 



231 



depicted in the paintings of Claude, &c.; the Pinus Cembra assumes a conical 



shape {fig. 48.) its boughs feathering towards the ground. Your informant 



might with equal truth and 



propriety have called the 



Scotch Pine and the Spruce 



Fir the same, for the one 



bears about as much re- 

 semblance to the other as 



the Stone Pine does to 



the Cembran Pine. 



If your readers, and 



yourself also, good Mr. 



Conductor, will take the 



trouble to refer back to 



your own pages, you will 



find at p. 265, 266., of 



your Third Volume, under 



an account of the Pine- 



tum at Dropmore. The 



Pinus Pfnea, and Pinus 



Cembra there set down as 



distinct species of the same 



genus ; one, the Pinus 



Pinea, comes under the 



class of Pinus foliis ge- 



minatis; the other, Pinus Cembra, under that of Pinus foliis quinis. 



Yours, &c. — An Amateur. Woodstock, October 10. 1828. 



We are exceedingly obliged to An Amateur and Causidicus for the above 

 correction and information. The truth is, we gave directions for copying 

 these and other extracts from the Foreign Quarterly Review without ob- 

 serving the error, and being in France when No. XVI. was published, we 

 only saw proofs of the first two sheets, and did not see a complete copy of 

 the Number till our return to Paris in December last. No two pines are 

 more easily distinguished than the Plnea and Cembra ; and while there are 

 abundance of large trees of the former in this country, those of the latter 

 are for the most part young. The Cembra is figured in Harte's Essays 

 under the name of Asphernousli. — Cond. 



The Anson, or Otakeite, Pine. — Sir, C. F. W., in the last Number of your 

 Magazine, page 103., asserts that the Anson, or Otaheite, Pine was intro- 

 duced into this country by the late Birt, Esq., of Colton Hall, and that 



some of the plants soon found their way from that to Shugborough, &c. 

 This is not correct; on the contrary, the more probable circumstance is, 

 that they found their way to Colton Hall from Shugborough, as there 

 exists proof that the gardener I succeeded here sent a quantity of pine 

 plants to Mr. Birt's, but none of having received any from his place. 

 Mr. Nicol (who was gardener here from 1800 to 1810) likewise informed 

 me, that the sort was in the stock when he came, under the name of the 

 Anson Pine, but he could give no further information respecting it. Mr. 

 Hodson (who was the gardener to Mr. Birt, now to the Marquess of 

 Anglesey, Beaudesert) informed me how it came to be named the Otaheite 

 Pine. He said, Mr. Birt was one day walking through the pine stoves, and 

 observing one of the plants, asked him the name of it : Mr. Hodson said 

 he did not know it, that there were not above two or three of the sort in the 

 stock. Mr. Birt observed that it very much resembled a pine they had in 

 the West Indies, under the name of the Otaheite. From that time he 

 named it the Otaheite : I had, at the same time, a large stock of them, and 

 not knowing the proper name, I adopted the one given it at Colton Hall, 

 until Mr. Nicol called upon me two or three years after, and corrected me 



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