128 TSUGA, OR HEMLOCK SPRUCE FIRS 
branches of the Hemlock jut out irregularly 
from all sides of its. trunk the branches of 
the Silver Fir are regularly whorled—that 
is to say, shaped after the Radiata outline 
of a starfish arranged round a central axis, 
or the spokes of a cart-wheel laid upon 
the ground. The leaves of the Silver Fir 
are notched at the apex, those of the 
Hemlock are not. The cones of the Silver 
Fir are upright’ and large, those of the 
Hemlock pendulous and small, and so ad 
infinitum, 
' Then there is the question of the Yew. The leaves 
may be arranged similarly, and there begins and ends 
any similitude. Its leaves are much longer than the 
Hemlock’s. Underneath them the colour is yellow- 
green, showing no white stomata bands as do the 
Hemlock’s. The twigs of the Yew are yellow-green 
and smooth, those of the Hemlock large and downy. 
Thus is disposed of any hint of relationship. between 
the two, without even trenching on the subject of 
the wide difference of their fruits. 
All these little disquisitions on obvious differences 
may read to some like a return to the more primal 
ways of nursery life, but it must be admitted in equal 
fairness that infants must walk before they run, 
and that the lower rungs of the ladder of knowledge 
must first be trod before the heights can be scaled. 
SPECIES AND VARIETIES OF HEMLOCK 
SPRUCE. FIRS 
Where‘ the hemlocks grew so dark 
That I.stopped to look and hark, 
WHITTIER, 
The list of Hemlock Spruces in cultivation in Great 
Britain consists of seven species, to which we have 
