16'3 A MANUAL OF TEE CONIFERS. 



of the inflorescence, which we have not yet seen, will doubtless decide 

 the point. 



As Jeffrey's name stands prominent among those who have been 

 instrumental in introducing new and fine Conifers into Great Britain, 

 the following particulars of his life and character, from Lawson's Pinetum 

 Britannicum, will be read with interest. 



"John Jeffrey was a young gardener of Fifeshire, bom on the 

 estate of Lochore, the maternal patrimony of the late Sir Walter Scott, 

 and employed in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, where he attracted 

 the attention of Professor Balfour and Mr. McNab by his zeal and 

 intelligence, and had carried off the prize offered to practical gardeners 

 for the best collection of dried plants made in the neighbourhood of 

 Edinburgh. On the recommendation of Mr. McNab, he was appointed 

 collector for the Oregon Association in the Spring of 1850. He left 

 England in June of that year in one of the Hudson's Bay Company's 

 vessels, bound for York Factory in Hudson's Bay. On his arrival there 

 he accompanied the Company's dispatch brigade, which was then wont 

 every year to cross the continent in winter, and proved that he possessed 

 at least one important requisite of a collector by the readiness which 

 he bore the hazards, the labours, and exposures of the winter journey. 

 He was on his ground in the spring of 1851, and for the whole of 

 that year he devoted himself zealously to exploring and collecting. The 

 first really new introduction of Jeffrey was Abies magnified which he 

 sent home under the name of A. amabilis, believing it to be identical 

 with the A. amabilis of Douglas. Other fruits of his first year's collec- 

 tion were seeds and cones of A. Albert/ana and A. Pattoniana also 

 new, A. Douglasii, A, Menziesii, and Pinus flexilis, at that time still 

 very rare. In the following year, Jeffrey went further south and sent 

 home seeds of many of the Californian Pines, and among them the 

 species that bears his name. His collections, however, • scarcely kept 

 pace with those of his first year ; and in the third year, a very marked 

 falling off in the consignments, accompanied by a total cessation of 

 correspondence, led to his engagement being brought to a termination. 

 What became of Jeffrey afterwards is not known. He was last heard 

 of at San Francisco, where, it was said, he had joined an American 

 Expedition to explore the Gela and Colorado. His fate will probably 

 ever remain a mystery." 



Pinus macrocarpa. — A large tree, with rounded top and long 

 spreading branches, with the extremities ascending and the young 

 shoots covered with a glaucous violet-brown. The leaves are from 

 9 Jo 12 inches long, rather stiff, three-angled and flattened, more or 

 less incurved, and of greyish glaucous green; they are persistent from 

 two to three years, and thus always appear clustered at the extremities 



