Picea 13^3 



obovate with a cuneate claw, |^ to f in, wide, rounded entire and slightly bevelled in 

 the upper margin ; bract J in. long, with a narrow claw and a rectangular lamina, 

 truncate at the apex. Seed dark coloured, ^ in. long, with the wing J in. long ; wing 

 broadest about the middle, upper margin rounded. 



This species is readily distinguished by its very short blunt leaves, and pale 

 brown pubescent branchlets. 



Distribution 



The oriental spruce is a native of Asia Minor and the Caucasus. It is widely 

 spread in most of the mountain ranges of Asia Minor, being recorded for Troas, Mysia, 

 Galatia, and Phrygia, where it generally occurs between 3000 and 7000 feet elevation. 

 It is also met with in the valleys of the Antitaurus. It is, however, much more 

 common, forming large forests, in the mountains between Trebizond and Erzerum, 

 where it was discovered by Tournefort ^ at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 

 In the Caucasus it is generally associated with Abies Nordmanniana, and occurs 

 in Georgia between 2500 and 7500 feet. In the Lesser Caucasus its eastern limit is 

 the meridian of Tiflis, being totally absent to the eastward and in the province of 

 Talysch. As a rule it ascends higher than Abies Nordmanniana, occasionally form- 

 ing the timber line at 7500 feet. The largest tree recorded by Radde,* measured, 

 when felled, 184 ft. in height, with a diameter of stem of 4 ft. i in., and a cubic 

 content of 925 ft.; it was 390 years old. 



Cultivation 



The species, according to Beissner,* was introduced into Europe in 1837, but 

 Loudon, writing in 1838, speaks of it as not in cultivation; and it appears* to have 

 come into this country in 1839. It has been in cultivation in the United States^ 

 since about 1850, where it has proved hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts, 

 and is one of the most beautiful of all the exotic conifers that have been planted in 

 the neighbourhood of Boston. (A. H.) 



Remarkable Trees 



None of the spruces seems more generally successful in cultivation than this ; 

 and though it does not grow so fast as the common or the Sitka spruce, it is a really 

 good ornamental tree, hardy in all parts of Great Britain, and ripening seed in most 

 places. We have measured many specimens of from 60 to 70 ft. high and a few 

 taller, among which the following may be mentioned : — 



At Dogmersfield Park, Hants, the seat of Sir H. Mildmay, a fine tree with 

 many cones, 78 ft. by 7 ft. 8 in. in 1907. At Strathfieldsaye a handsome specimen 

 76 ft. by 7 ft. 8 in. At Highnam a tree about 67 ft. by 7 ft. in 1905. At Penrhyn 

 a tree recorded® as 58 ft. high in 1891, which was, when measured by me in 1906, 

 75 ft. by 5 ft. 10 in. 



' Voyage au Levant, 2%i {lIlT). * A'auiasuslandem, 223 (iS^g). ^ Nadelhohkunde, yj^(i?,gi). 



* Lawson, Pinet. Brit. ii. 163 (1865). Loudon, in Trees and Shrubs, 1029 (1842) says: "Of late many plants have 

 been raised in Knight's exotic nursery, from seeds received from Mingrelia and the neighbourhood of Tiflis. " 

 " Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii. 22, note (1898), and in Garden and Forest, 1895, p. 55- 

 '^ Journ. R. Hort. Soc. xiv. 485 (1892). 



