560 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 
VARIETIES 
In the wild state there is considerable variation in the size and shape of the 
leaves, dependent upon conditions of soil, shade, and climate. Fliche’ describes two 
distinct forms in France. In the hot and dry region of the Esterel, the leaves are 
small in size, not exceeding 2} inches in length by # inch in breadth, and are very 
coriaceous, spathulate, with feebly serrated and revolute margins. In the forest of 
La Pinouse, near Quillan in Aude, which is mainly composed of Pinus sylvestris with 
a slight mixture of beech and silver fir, the climate being cool and the altitude con- 
siderable, the Arbutus has very large leaves, often 5 inches long by 2 inches broad, 
which are lanceolate with sharply serrate and non-revolute margins. 
The following varieties are often cultivated :— 
1. Var. rubra, Aiton, Hort. Kew, ii. 71 (1789). (Var. Cvroomez,’ Hort.).—Flowers 
pink or reddish. Mackay ® noticed a single plant of this variety, growing on 
red slate near Glengariff. 
2. Var. itegerrima, Sims, Bot. Mag. t. 2319 (1822) (vars. zentegrifolia and 
votundtfolia, Hort.).—Leaves entire and smaller than in the type. This is 
said to have been raised by Loddiges from seed of the ordinary form. The 
leaves vary in shape, often being obovate’or almost orbicular. 
3. Var. guerctfoha, Hort.—Leaves obovate-lanceolate, with a few irregular teeth in 
the upper half, about 2 inches long by 3 inch broad. In cultivation at Kew. 
4. Var. turbinata, Persoon.—This variety occurs wild in Greece, and is remarkable 
for its large top-shaped fruit, more than an inch in length. 
5. Other varieties have been noted, which I have not seen, as salicifolia with narrow 
leaves, cvisfa with crumpled leaves, and J/ena, with semi-double flowers. 
DISTRIBUTION 
This species is widely spread throughout the maritime regions of the countries 
bordering on the Mediterranean, occurring in Spain, France, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, 
Istria, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Algeria, and Morocco. It is 
also met with in the maritime belt along the Atlantic from Portugal to Kerry in 
Ireland. It occurs either as undergrowth in the forests, where in favoured situations 
it reaches the dimensions of a small tree, or is one of the shrubs composing the 
maguts or heaths, which spread over large tracts of siliceous soil that have been 
denuded of trees in past ages. It is apparently only in Ireland that the Arbutus 
grows to be a forest tree, moderate in size, but equalling in height and girth the trees 
of other species, with which it is associated, 
In France, the Arbutus is common in the departments whose shores are bathed 
by the Mediterranean and extends inland as far as Dréme and Lozére; it is not un- 
frequent along the west coast from Bayonne to La Rochelle, and is recorded‘ from 
1 Bull. Soc. des Sciences, 1886, p. 26. 2 Figured in Garden, xxxiii, 320 (1888). 3 Fl. Hibernica, 182 (1836). 
4 Arbutus is very abundant, in company with oak and mountain ash, in a wood, about 14 mile in length, on the abrupt 
and rocky slope of the cliff of Trieux, near Paimpol, in Cétes-du-Nord. Cf. Dr. Avice, in Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xiiii. 123 
(1896), and Coste, Flore de la France, ii, 506 ( 1903). Ina note on the occurrence of this species in the Landes, in Budd. 
Soc. Bot. France, xlix. p. lvii. (1902), it is stated that wherever the Arbutus grows, in that region, holly is absent, the two 
species seeming to exclude each other. 
