108 JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to the courtesy of M. Philippe de Vihiiorin, I am enabled to lay before 

 the Committee cones and foliage from this hybrid Conifer. 



The history of the tree was given by M. Em. Bailly in the " Revue 

 Horticole," March 1889, page 115.'^ From this we learn that in the 

 spring of the year 1867 M. de ^'ilmorin placed some pollen of Abies 

 cephalonica (fig. 31), a very near ally of A. Norchnanniana and of A. excelsa, 

 on the female flowers of A. Pinsapo (fig. 30). A solitary fertile seed was 

 produced and was sown in the autumn of the same year. Germination 

 ensued, and the seedling was planted out in 1868. The tree is therefore 

 now (1901) thirty-four years old. In 1878 its height was recorded to be 

 three feet,t and M. P. de Vilmorin tells me it now measures fourteen 

 and a half metres (about forty-six feet), and would have attained greater 

 dimensions but that its leader has been destroyed. On the whole, says 

 M. Bailly, the tree more nearly represents the male parent (cephalonica) 

 than it does the female (Pinsapo). This is evident in the general appear- 

 ance, the habit, the two-ranked arrangement of the leaves, their length and 

 their silvery tint. The cones (fig. 32) are also more like those of A. cepha- 

 lonica than they are like those of A . Pinsapo. They are oblong fusiform, and, 

 according to M. Bailly, the tips of the bracts project beyond the edge of 

 the seed scale, which they do not do in A. Pinsapo. The two cones 

 forwarded by M. de Vilmorin in December 1900 do not quite conform to 

 M. Bailly's statement, for it is only in a few cases that the bracts, 

 especially those near the base of the cone, project beyond the scale. 

 This diversity of proportionate length between the bract and the scale is, 

 however, so frequent in Conifers that little or no importance can be 

 attached to it as a diagnostic character. 



So far as the number, strength, length, and decurved direction of the 

 branches and the thickness of the leaves are concerned, the hybrid more 

 nearly partakes of the characteristics of the female parent, A. Pinsapo. 

 L"p to last year, although the cones matured, the seeds remained sterile, 

 but in 1900, according to information kindly furnished by M. P. de 

 Vilmorin, it produced good seeds for the first time, and we await with 

 interest the production of seedling plants. It is not necessary in this 

 place to repeat the detailed description of the tree which M. Bailly has 

 given (I.e.), the foregoing summary being sufficient for my present purpose. 

 Still less is it requisite to give a detailed description of the parent plants, 

 such as may be found in any of the authoritative text-books, such as 

 Veitch's " Manual of the Coniferas," second edition (1900), p. 498 and 

 p. 534. It may, however, be well to allude to those details of leaf-con- 

 struction which are made use of in distinguishing one species from another. 



In both Abies Pinsapo and A. cephalonica there is, immediately 

 beneath or within the skin or epiderm, a double layer of thick- walled cells 

 constituting the " hypoderm." Next comes the "palisade" tissue, 

 consisting of two or three layers of closely packed oblong cells, and then 

 the ring of cells surrounding the central bundle and known as the 

 " endoderm." The " hemistele," or central half-cylinder, consists of the 

 " pericycle," a mass of cells surrounding the fibro-vascular bundle. 



See' also Beissner, Handhuch dcr Xadelholzkunde (1891), p. 443 ; Gardeners'' 

 Chronicle (1878), p. 438. 



t Gard. Chron. (1878), p. 438. 



