174 PINUS PINEA AT DUNGLASS 



Scotland, and the North or even the Midlands of England, 

 as far as I can discover, are quite unknown, though I have 

 heard of unsuccessful attempts to rear seedlings. The few, 

 too, anywhere that have survived the severe winters that 

 occur occasionally in our climate, even in the South, show 

 • but imperfectly the striking characteristics that render the 

 tree so picturesque in Southern Europe. 



The discovery, therefore, in 1904, by our late Treasurer, 

 Mr George Bolam, of these six healthy cone-bearing specimens, 

 the highest not far short of 30 feet, at the foot of a railway 

 embankment close to the post road here in Scotland, unsus- 

 pected, unnoticed, uncared for during the past half-century, 

 is surely one full of surprise and interest, and a notable 

 addition to the botanical annals of our Club. It is a further 

 example, too, of the observant powers of Mr Bolam, who 

 was such a very valuable member, and whose loss is a very 

 serious one indeed. 



With a view to verification a branch with cones was sent 

 to Kew, as, although I had no doubt as to its identity, it 

 seemed, at the same time, in the highest degree improbable 

 that such trees should be flourishing in this locality. Not 

 the least curious feature of the discovery, moreover, is the 

 fact that the late Dr Hardy must have passed and re-passed 

 them a hundred times during his long life in this his native 

 parish ; but their nature must have escaped his observant eye 

 to the last. 



You may naturally enquire whether I have been able to 

 trace their history. I have not, with much accuracy. There 

 is no record of them at Dungiass, but Mr Malcolm, the 

 " oldest residenter " at Bilsdean, informed me that not long 

 after the opening of the Railway in 1846, he remembered 

 the embankment for a considerable distance being planted 

 with various sorts of Conifers by an Edinburgh firm. I 

 have little doubt that these Stone Pines were planted at 

 the same time experimentally, and in course of time were 

 forgotten. They are considerably cramped, crooked, and 

 misshapen, no doubt, and with one or two partial exceptions 

 do not show the characteristic bare stem topped by its 

 umbrella-shaped dome of foliage. The wonder is, however. 



