REPOET OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1896 49 



Appendix. 



Notes oit Coniferoits Trees at T%vizeU. By GEORGE Bolam, 

 F.Z.S., Berwick-on-T\veed. 



The Conifers at Twizell are particularly interesting. The 

 late Mr Selby took up residence here, about the year 1811, 

 and began planting almost immediately. I am not aware 

 that the actual ages of any of the specimens still growing can 

 be ascertained, but there is a paper by Mr Selby, upon the 

 trees and shrubs injured by the frosts of 1860-61, in the 

 Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club, vol. v., p. 

 73, in which reference is made to several of them ; and there is 

 an old manuscript of Mr Selby's, still preserved at Twizell, 

 containing notes upon the " Coniferous Trees at Twizell, 1865," 

 which gives some additional information. From the latter 

 source it is still possible to identify many of the existing trees, 

 and we may safely conclude that many of them had been 

 planted a good many years previous to that date. 



Amongst the most conspicuous may be mentioned two fine 

 specimens of the Araucaria imbricata, standing on the lawn a 

 little to the south-west of the house ; and near them is a large 

 Picea menziesii, a handsome and striking tree, though now 

 getting rather thin in foliage, which is referred to in the 1865 

 MS., as the only specimen then growing at Twizell. Behind 

 this is a large Abies nobilis ; and further back towards the 

 wood, a very nice Sequoia sempervirens, a tree not often met 

 with in our neighbourhood of the same size. Another of these, 

 though not so fine an example, having been overgrown with 

 other trees, occurs on the west side of the flower garden — 

 both specimens being referred to in the 1865 book. Near the 

 sempervirens on the lawn, is a smaller specimen of Cryptomeria 

 japonica, which is bearing cones, and was also referred to in 

 1865. Upon the lawn, south-east of the house, are good 

 specimens of Thuia occidentalis, and Picea smithiana, the 

 Himalayan Spruce, remarkable from its drooping branchlets, 

 "almost as pendulous as those of a Wee[)ing Willow;" and a 

 very handsome Cupressus macrocarpa, forming a dense spreading 

 bush of over twenty feet in height and covered with its walnut- 

 like fruit, the leader is still slowly ascending. Proceeding 

 eastwards upon the same side of the drive, is an aged example 

 H 



