98 ABIES, OR SILVER FIRS 
object-lesson in their difference of growth was seen 
and commented upon by the judges of plantations 
referred to above, in a large wood of about sixteen 
acres (Plassey Plantation), planted out with pure. 
Douglas by Lord Powis in 1906-7, at his Shropshire 
home at Walcot. They had been planted simul- 
taneously but in distinct groups. The Oregon had 
grown to be half as high again as their Colorado 
confréres, which occupied about a third of the space 
of the ground. 
The tree has been so universally planted that it 
has become a familiar sight of everyday walks. At 
the same time it reads about as complicated a question 
in the way of a botanical puzzle as any. In some 
respects it takes after the Spruces (Piceas), in other 
respects after the Silver Firs (Abies). On points 
added the Silver Firs get most marks, but insufficient 
to admit it unreservedly to theirranks. Veitch called 
it Abietia ; Elwes and Henry, and also Bean, cling 
to Pseudo-Tsuga nomenclature. . 
The cones plentifully strewn around its trunk are 
pendulous, as are the cones of the Piceas, but the 
exserted bracts are more after the manner of some of 
the Abies. The bright-red flowers (male) about 
# inch long, surrounded by involucral bracts and 
growing on the under-side of the branchlet of the 
preceding year, present a very pretty spring picture. 
The pistillate or female flowers, mostly terminal, are 
composed of imbricated scales, with the three-lobed 
bracts, shaped like a Neptune’s trident, longer than 
their scales, and which appear afterwards on the 
full-grown cone, give it an unmistakable appearance. 
The leaves, it will be seen, on looking at them closer, 
are placed on rather obscure and very slightly raised 
pulvini. When pulled off they make no such per- 
ceptible tear as the more prominently raised Common 
Spruce, neither do they leave the clean-cut circular 
