A. WEBBIANA 83 
cold as intense as that of the historic winter in France, 
1407, when, as it was solemnly declared, the frost 
was so bitter that at every third word the ink froze 
in the pens at the Court of Law, and arrested the 
recording of judgments. 
There are times when late frosts injure particularly 
the young trees, or perhaps what is worse, a perpetual 
visitation of cold winds browns and scarifies the 
senior members of the Pinetum with a cruelty that 
is positively heartless. Men, we are told, may some- 
times look on tempests and remain unshaken, but 
trees, unfortunately, are hardly as stoical. 
In its own country the A. Webbiana enjoys im- 
munity from inconstancy. From a hibernating stage 
of a winter spent under a deep snow, it emerges at a 
fixed date with clockwork regularity, to find itself 
warm and happy, under the promoting conditions of 
a blue rejoicing sky. That it finds our climate to be 
generally unaccommodating is unfortunate, since it is 
a tree that is all-beautiful without and as all-glorious- 
within, as those king’s daughters that we are told, 
upon the Psalmist’s authority, at a moment of time 
when his heart was inditing of a good matter, were 
fitted to enter king’s palaces. Its cones in their 
early stage are of a most attractive violet-purple 
colour. Its leaves on the underneath surface display 
the most vivid silvery whiteness of all well-known 
Conifers, so far; and in spirit of prophecy we venture 
a statement that their proxime accessit, or even 
conqueror, in colour scheme in years to come will 
be the new and lately named Chinese Silver Fir, 
A. Forrestii. 
Botanically and geographically the A. Webbiana 
has been menticrned together with the A. Pindrow 
If the Pindrow is an affinity of it, all we can say is 
that, judging from outward appearances, it is a very. 
colourless edition of the A. Webbiana. As “ light 
az 
